


What Dreams May Come

by HelenJay



Series: The Dream Trilogy [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Hogwarts Era, No Smut, Parallel Universes, Romance, dramione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 272,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4956835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenJay/pseuds/HelenJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone is lost. The boundaries between worlds are crumbling and dreams are rapidly turning into nightmares. Will Harry and his friends find the strength to save everything they hold dear, or will darkness claim them all forever?</p><p>Thrown to the different corners of the Multiverse, Harry, Draco and their friends soon discover that this is much bigger than any of them could ever have imagined, and that the cost could potentially be higher than anyone ever feared.  </p><p>“To die, to sleep;<br/>To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;<br/>For in that sleep of death what dreams may come<br/>When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.”  William Shakespeare</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Apocalypse Please

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third and final part of the Dream Trilogy. I hope you enjoy it!

Prologue -

   Apocalypse Please

  

Declare this an emergency

Come on and spread a sense of urgency

And pull us through

And pull us through

 

And this is the end, the end

This is the end

Of the world

 

And it's time we saw a miracle

Come on it's time for something biblical

To pull us through

And pull us through

 

And this is the end, the end

This is the end

Of the world

 

Proclaim eternal victory

Come on and change the course of history

And pull us through

And pull us through

 

And this is the end, the end

This is the end

Of the world

Muse

 

   Alex was as slumped down in his chair as far he could possibly get, his hands pressed to his face, his eyes peering out between his fingers, cringing. He wondered, in situations like this, what one needed to do to get the ground to swallow him up whole; he’d seen it done before, he didn’t think it was that unreasonable a request.

   He had never been to the Great Courtroom before, but he could safely say he could go another several lifetimes without ever coming back. It was scary in there.

   He was sat at a table facing the Jury of Elders, and behind him seemed to be congregated half the entire inhabitants of Limbo. To his right sat Jia who was full of so much caffeine she was visibly vibrating, and to his left was Seamus, who had put on a dark navy suit for the occasion with the intent of looking mature and responsible, but instead more resembled a schoolboy on work experience at a car dealership.

   And everybody...and Alex really did mean _everybody..._ was screaming. At the top of their lungs. Paper was flying through the air, ink pots were being thrown. The gavel had ended up in the hands of some sort of infant orangutan that was swinging it at any and all of the heads it could find. People pointed and spat and turned red as they roared and wailed at each other.

   “Is it me,” came a nasally voice from the table in front of Alex. “Or have you made everyone a little bit cross?” Alex closed one eye so he could see between his fingers clearly, and sighed pitifully at the little crimson dragon sat on his haunches as well as Alex’s pile of notes. He had cobalt blue eyes, and in his sharp claws was clutched a well hugged teddy bear.

   “Go,” said Alex very calmly, and very slowly. “Away.”

   “Uh-uh,” said Puff the dragon, waving a little scaly finger. “You have something of mine.”

   People continued their many, many arguments around the courtroom, but Alex was still able to hear Puff’s whiney drawl perfectly. “I don’t have it _anymore_ though,” he said in frustration, flinging down his hands onto the wooden bench.

   Puff shrugged his shoulders and pretended to examine his claws. “Not my problem,” he said petulantly. “I am not leaving until I get it back.”

   One of the four elders, a little girl as black as the night with a raggedy dress and bare feet, was slamming her hand repeatedly on the high bench they were stationed on. _“SILENCE!”_ she roared. _“WE WILL HAVE SILENCE!”_

They did not have it, in fact, a woman more dog than person began howling in the aisle behind the little gates that separated the audience from those (and Alex dreaded to think the words) _on trail._

   The courtroom, though on a much larger scale, was not that dissimilar to the ones Alex had seen in countless American legal dramas, where the lawyers representing the wrongly accused would make a terrific speech at the end and save the day. The only thing that was missing was the terrific lawyers and wrong accusations. It was all dark mahogany wood and green leather on the seats. Bright sunlight was beaming down in shafts through the tall windows high above them, but rather than being a comfort it only reminded Alex of light glaring off a knife blade.

   “Let me help you,” said Puff in a voice that was so dripping with sarcasm it was as far away from helpful as it could possibly get. “Where did you last leave it?”

   Alex sat back up in his seat as Seamus rubbed his back, both of them glaring at the dragon. “There are far more important things than your ball-ball,” sniped Seamus. “How did you get in here anyway?”

   “Oh yes, yes, I _quite_ agree,” said Puff with a nod. “There’s all those nice shiny nuggets of possibilities you owe me.” He grinned, showing all his sharp teeth. “How many was it again?”

   The other three Elders, just as unused to not being listened to as the little black girl, were all trying to calm their courtroom down in addition to her banging. There was a bald man’s head on a purple satin pillow rocking back and forth, bellowing from behind lavender coloured teeth. A female centaur was rearing and stamping her hooves. And what could only be described as a swirling cloud of dark blue mist and the occasional flash of lightning, well, swirled. And moved bits of paper around.

   “No,” continued Seamus. “Seriously, how did you get in here? It was created by the minds of the Elders, and they chose who were invited. You were, most definitely, not.”

   Puff tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Shut it, newbie,” he snarled. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

   Alex groaned. Since they had been there all anybody had done was shout, and fight, and occasionally giggle hysterically. Enough was enough.

   He stood up, smoothing down his tailcoat and faded jeans. “Excuse me?” he said. Nothing happened. Everyone carried on with their hollering, and a paper aeroplane soared by Alex’s head. And then it was like all the worry, all the terror and anger of the last few hours came crashing down on him, exploding out of him like a dam buckling under the pressure of an entire reservoir. _“EXCUSE,”_ he roared in a voice that made the floorboards shake. _“ME!”_

   Everyone stopped still. The paper that had been flying around slowly floated to the floor, and the baby orangutan dropped the gavel with a whimper. The four Elders seemed to notice Alex for the first time, and all sat back down in their seats (except for the centaur, who remained standing, the head, who remained perched, and the whirlwind which just carried on whirling). There was a brief scuffle as the audience members shuffled around to find seats, and then the courtroom was quiet. Alex let out the breath he’d been holding.

   “Yes,” said the little black girl peevishly. “Well, that’s better isn’t it.”

   Alex looked down at Jia, who still had her fingers in her ears and was staring ahead, shell-shocked, and Seamus who was grinning like a maniac at him. Alex cleared his throat, and sat back down again.

   “We are all here,” began the centaur. “To address a very serious matter, and your cooperation would be greatly appreciated.”

   “So quit your yapping!” barked the head with the purple teeth.

   Alex could feel his palms sweating. This was wasting time, they needed to pool their information, work out what had happened, then get back out there and help his boys. And girls, good gracious it was such a mess.

   “The being known as ‘Alex’,” the little black girl called out. It was beyond Alex why the Elders thought themselves above names, it made situations like these all the more stressful, not to mention when it came to writing Christmas cards. “Present yourself to the Jury.”

   Alex stood up again, feeling hundreds of eyes on him, and he shifted his weight in his pirate boots. “Hello,” he said in a weak but cheery voice. “Yes, that’s me, I’m Alex.”

   “Thank you,” said the centaur.

   The head rolled his eyes. “Perhaps,” he said. “The being known as ‘Alex’ would like to explain why we are all here.”

   Alex looked down at Seamus, who gave him two thumbs up and a little smile. Jia patted his arm. “Okay,” he breathed out. “Well, it started when one of my constituents accidentally sent himself to another universe last November in my world’s calendar - do you need a conversion?”

   The little black girl waved her hand. “We know all about that, and the resulting Dimensional Leap back, and then the two beings from the being known as ‘Seamus’’ world crossing over. The last we were informed,” she paused as she glared at Jia, who hunkered down in her seat. “They were due to return to their own universe, and that was to be the last of the matter. What, dare I ask, happened?”

   Alex ran his hand through his blond hair, making it sticky with wax. “So,” he said, stepping out from behind the table and wiping his hand on his jeans. “Whilst he was in Seamus’ world, my Harry Potter defeated Voldemort, just like he did when he was a child in his own universe. This meant though he now had _another_ Horcrux in him, another part of Voldemort’s soul. And this couldn’t be allowed, it was highly dangerous and meant the people of Seamus’ world had no chance to defeat their Dark Lord once and for all. So I began on a quest to resolve the situation.”

   Puff, still sat on the desk by Seamus and Jia with his bear, tutted and rolled his eyes. Alex began to pace. “So I acquired an amulet that would draw the foreign Horcrux from out of Harry and return it to the right world, all I needed was a carrier, so I started luring people that had already had contact with my Harry near the Hotspot, with the hopes they might crossover.”

“It was Draco Malfoy and Sarah Potter that eventually fell through,” supplied Seamus.

   “And after months of waiting, Harry _finally_ went into a state of flux,” continued Alex. “When he fell into the Floo network, so I was able to give him the amulet and explain the situation. It was all going to plan.”

   “So what happened?” harrumphed the bald head on the pillow.

   Alex swallowed and looked back towards Seamus, Jia, and an unnecessarily smug looking Puff. “Draco Malfoy happened.”

   The whirlwind flashed a mini fork of lightning. “Sorry,” said Alex, licking his lips. “I didn’t mean to be sarcastic, that was my ‘tragically resigned’ voice.”

   “Continue,” instructed the centaur, and Alex nodded.

   “Draco and the other students-”

   “Harry Potter,” interrupted Seamus, leaning forward on the table. “Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all from Alex’s universe, and Sarah Potter from mine.” Alex raised an eyebrow at Seamus, and he sat back down in his seat again sheepishly.

   “Yes, those lot,” agreed Alex. “They all got in a spot of bother, but the long and the short of it is, Draco’s mother sacrificed her life for her son’s, just as Lily Potter had done for my Harry, and when Voldemort turned his wand on Draco to perform the killing curse, it rebounded and destroyed him, just like it did with Harry.”

   The Elders looked grave. “And thus,” said the little black girl. “Instilling a Horcrux in Draco Malfoy as well.”

   “Yahtzee,” said Alex, jabbing a finger at the girl. The ice cold look in her eyes made him pull it back again.

   The bald head rocked on his pillow. “Today man,” he griped. “Explain what happened today!”

   Alex swallowed and stopped his pacing. “Yes,” he said. “Like I said, it was all going so well.”

   The centaur pawed at the ground. “And then?”

   “The amulet,” and Alex couldn’t help but throw Puff a dirty look. “Was only designed to withdraw the Horcrux from Harry when the spell was cast to return Draco and Sarah to their world. It would latch on to one of them, and transfer to an object once they were back through. After that Seamus would orchestrate its safe removal etcetera, etcetera…”

   “And instead?” prompted the little black girl impatiently.

   Alex felt so heavy he leant against the railings in front of the audience for support. “The Horcrux within Draco threw the amulet completely off kilter. It removed _both_ their foreign souls, but the inter-dimensional spell rebounded, expelling Harry, Ron and Hermione, and leaving Draco and Sarah behind.”

   “Expelled them where?” demanded the head, alarmed.

   “Well,” chipped in Seamus. “We know at least one of them came back to my universe, but the other two…” he trailed off.

   “We’re not sure,” said Alex in a small voice.

   There was another burst of shouting from the audience as people became riled again. “You’ve lost _two_ constituents?” bellowed the little black girl.

   The whirlwind flashed some lightning again, and Alex stood up in response. “Well that’s an interesting idea,” he conceded, his brow furrowed.

   The centaur flicked through some papers in front of her. “How long have you been a Watcher?” she asked neutrally.

   “Uh,” replied Alex, thrown by the question. “About fifteen hundred years, give or take a few decades.

   “A child,” scoffed the head on the pillow.

   The centaur didn’t seem pleased. “And for someone with so little time in the service,” she said coldly. “This is the _second_ time you have lost a citizen in the wrong reality, am I correct?”

   “Oh I didn’t lose her,” said Alex quickly. “I got her back lickity split.”

   The centaur brandished one of the sheets of paper at him. “At the turn of the nineteenth century – your calendar – you allowed a non-magical person to travel to an _openly_ magical parallel universe, and then upon her return to _publish books_ recounting the entire affair!”

   Alex held up a finger. “Now that’s not fair,” he countered back. “I made her take all the zombies out of those books, and the sea monsters.”

   “Enough!” shouted the head on the pillow.

   “Indeed,” growled the little black girl. “That is not the issue at hand, it was dealt with by the Jury of the time.” She rested her chin on her hands. “So we can safely assume that this matter will be taken care of as easily as the previous case, yes?”

   “Oh no,” said Alex, taking a few steps towards the bench.   “Anyone who said this would be easy would be telling naughty fibs.”

   The head on the pillow seemed to bang his face on the desk. The whirlwind cracked its lightning again.

   “I quite agree,” muttered the centaur.

   “So - what?” demanded the little black girl. “What’s so difficult?”

   Alex sighed and rubbed his waxy hair again. “We don’t know where the other two children have gone yet,” he explained morosely. “Or more importantly, what happened to the Horcruxes.”

   “Now that, my good man,” came a voice from the back of the courtroom. “Is a very good question indeed.” The door at the back of the room banged quietly shut, and then silence filled the room like a flood.

   Alex felt like the muscles and nerves in his body had been replaced in their entirety by pure horror. A silent part of him screamed to turn round and look at who the voice belonged to, but his useless limbs refused to obey. “It’s not possible,” croaked the head on the pillow. Alex heard as people in the audience scrambled to get away from the aisle where the person belonging to the voice was walking slowly down. He could hear the swish-swish of his robes too.

   “Oh,” continued the voice, as smooth as silk as he came to a halt halfway down the room. “I agree, it is very _unlikely,_ but I can give you personal assurance that it’s entirely possible.”

   Alex couldn’t take it anymore. With a tremendous wrench, he turned enough to see Lord Voldemort smiling at the Jury of Elders behind him. “Oh no,” he whispered.

   “Oh yes,” countered Voldemort, and laughed at his own joke. “It’s funny how these things happen isn’t it? When that Potter boy transferred to my universe last year, I was convinced it was all to do with the Philosopher’s Stone and my eternal youth.” He waved his hand. “How small, how benign my thinking was.”

   “How did you enter this room?” demanded the little black girl in a voice far more commanding than her stature would suggest she was capable of. People were pulling at the big double doors at the back of the hall, but they were refusing to budge, so the crowd turned and began attacking the windows, smashing them open and escaping to rooms far, far away. Some would follow those in front of them, others would change the destination using their minds or magical powers before hauling themselves up and over the high window sills.

   “This is a sealed conference,” carried on the little black girl. “Permissible only by the minds of the Jury and only possible to attend by our _specific_ invitation.”

   “Puff got in,” whispered Alex to himself, feeling like all the blood was draining out of him and he was going to pass out any second. How, _how_ could this have happened? He’d said ‘when Harry had travelled to his world,’ so he must be from Seamus’ reality. But how had he arrived in Limbo? He should have been a bodiless spirit, trapped in the ether, it was what always happened in every universe when Lily Potter’s sacrifice rebounded on him. There was just no way he could be here.

   Lord Voldemort smirked, his ruby eyes glinting in his bone white face. “My dear child,” he said, which ruffled the black girl considerably. “I would be far more concerned with other matters at present if I were you.”

   “You must leave, now,” instructed the centaur. “We will not stand for it.”

   Voldemort was strolling, leisurely, closer and closer to the end of the aisle where the little gate stood. Alex couldn’t help but realise how dreadfully exposed he was, standing in the middle of the floor, in front of the bench. He began easing slowly to his right, back towards Jia and Seamus.

   People were jostling and crying out in panic, trying not to be noticed as they evacuated the courtroom. The windows were narrow and high up though, and people kept falling as they scrambled to get through. Thunder boomed from outside the building’s walls, and a chill ran down Alex’s spine. Limbo did not have weather, unless you constructed it. Could Voldemort be adding his own weather to the scene? How could he possibly do that, he didn’t _belong_ here.

   Voldemort smiled at the little black girl as she stood her ground behind the juror’s bench. The centaur pawed at the ground and whinnied nervously, and the head was doing his best to look asleep, though he kept peeking out through one eye. The whirlwind seemed to be getting bigger, and crackled with electricity as it addressed Voldemort.

   “You need to move beyond this idea,” the dark wizard said as he came to a halt and people jumped over chairs behind him as the mob continued its press outwards. “That I can’t be here, or shouldn’t be here. The point is moot.”

“For you see,” came a second voice from behind, and Alex feared for a moment he might actually throw up. “I am so _unbelievably_ here, it really is beyond a shadow of a doubt. So perhaps we should begin discussing what is going to happen now, rather than dwell on the improbabilities of the past.”

   Alex, cringing in horror, turned around to witness the second speaker. He had emerged from the door leaning off from the side of the juror’s bench where he imagined the judge would normally reside when making decisions or having a quick snooze. The Jury of Elders were all edging backwards, except for the head who looked livid at being left where he was perched. And there, leaning against the bench inspecting his nails, was a second, almost identical Lord Voldemort.

   Alex swore under his breath.

   “Quite!” said this new Voldemort happily to him, taking a few steps forward that Alex countered with a few back. “It is most improbable, isn’t it?”

   The people still remaining in the courtroom had gone from panicked to hysterical. Because, no matter what universe they originated from, no matter what worlds they now watched over, almost all of them had heard of Lord Voldemort, even if they didn’t have one of their own. But every single one of them could tell you that being faced with _two_ of them, was really, really bad news.

   The Voldemort in the aisle extended a hand and a smile to his counterpart by the bench. “Ah, I see you’ve met me already, haven’t you?” Alex turned and saw he was being addressed personally. He backed up towards Seamus and Jia.

   “It’s them,” he rasped as his co-workers scraped their chairs back and followed him towards the wall. Puff and his teddy bear had dived off the desk and were cowering by Alex’s feet. “The ones Harry and Draco defeated in each other’s worlds.”

   The Voldemort closest to them, the one Draco had defeated in Alex’s universe, placed his hand on his chest. “It is true,” he announced to the panicking crowd. “We were destroyed by children from different worlds. An odd fate indeed.”

   “But our Horcruxes,” said the other Voldemort in the aisle with relish. “Kept us anchored to the corporeal plane.” He grinned wickedly at Alex. “Until you released them today, ripping them from the boys that contained them, and flung them across the Multiverse alongside those other dear children.”

   Alex’s heart was pounding in his ribcage. He felt like a mouse being cornered by two hungry snow leopards.

   “As our souls flew freely through Limbo,” the Voldemort by the juror’s bench very graciously explained. “We were able to – oh, how do the Americans say it? Hitch a ride?” He laughed softly. “Like catching the end of the string on a loose kite, we were pulled from an incorporeal Hell on Earth, and granted new life in this realm you call Limbo. A lovely little place from what I’ve seen so far.”

   _“And he,”_ the other Voldemort began to recite. “ _Who misplaces himself, shall hold the key, and he shall bring light and power and control to all he sees, all he can imagine. And with great force and acumen he will be the instrument of unity, and the king of all will rule.”_

   The Voldemort closest to Alex clapped his hands together. “You see?” he said to them, almost completely ignoring the Elders watching on. “It all makes more sense now doesn’t it? I thought it was referring to young Draco being in the wrong body, but it fits much nicer when you think about us, popping up in Limbo like this.”

   “Because,” added the Voldemort in the aisle. “Who wants to rule one universe, where there are so many others up for grabs too.”

   Alex had his arms out, protecting Seamus and Jia behind him as they crept towards the wall. “When I say run,” he stammered in the quietest voice he could. “We run.”

   “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” complimented the Voldemort by the bench, the one from Alex’s universe.

   The Voldemort from Seamus’ universe bowed slightly as the crowd jostled and dashed for the doors, smashed the high windows open with chairs or shoes. “One of the many advantages,” he agreed. “Of working with oneself.”

   _“Run!”_ cried Alex as both Voldemorts, in perfect unison, withdrew their wands, and fired. Alex vaulted over the railings as the ceiling collapsed around them. It was like a series of small bombs going off, people wailing and screaming in terror. “Come on!” Alex yelled, as he and Seamus grabbed Jia’s arms and hoisted her over the barrier.

   “We’ve got to stop them,” she gasped as the Elders fled from the bench, the little girl hastily grabbing the head and drop kicking it out the door. The whirlwind was creating a heck of a ruckus, bearing down on the Voldemort that had been nearest to them. But the other Dark Lord came to his rescue, firing at the blue cloud, trying to disperse it. The whirlwind just became bigger, more ferocious and cracked an especially loud fork of lightning, but both the Voldemorts fired at it again. Their spells sailed right on through the whirlwind, but one of them hit the centaur square on the chest.

   There was a cry of horror from the crowd who had seen, as the Elder only had a moment to look shocked, before she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

   Jia seemed to stop breathing. “Get out,” she exhaled. “Now – that window – go!” Alex didn’t need telling twice, as he fought through the mob and wrenched a chair from the floor and chucked it under the nearest window.

   “My house,” he instructed Seamus as he gave him a boost. “Go!” Seamus pulled out his wand, using familiar patterns from his human life, and burst the window above them outwards into the abyss of Limbo. By the time he’d hauled himself up though, it looked a lot like Alex’s entrance hallway on the other side.

   “Hey!” yelled Puff, half climbing up Alex’s leg as more of the ceiling caved in and more people screamed at the evanescence of those around them. “Hey, don’t leave me here, you can’t leave me here!” A spell shot past them both, so close it singed the ear off of the teddy bear in Puff’s scaly grasp. _“Teddy!”_ he cried out in horror.

   Unceremoniously, Alex reached down with one hand, seized the dragon by the scruff of his neck, and threw him head first through the window. “Come on!” he called to Jia, who had been firing protective spells from her fingers, just as she had done in her human life. From behind her shields people had been escaping from the destruction the Lord Voldemorts were raining down on them. “We have to-”

   But the Voldemorts had obviously got tired of the Chinese Watcher ruining their fun, because at that moment they turned to her, and both hit her with jets of green light.

   _“NO!”_ roared Alex in horror as his manager, his friend for over a hundred years, vanished in a cloud of dust. _“No, Jia NO!”_ He went to reach for her, where she had been standing, oblivious that the Voldemorts were turning their wands on him, when his feet lifted from the floor, he shot up and through the window, and Seamus slammed the front door closed behind him.

   “NO!” screamed Alex again, scrambling to his feet and pounding on the door. “No, Jia! Send me BACK!” But no matter how he slammed his hands on the door, or pulled with all his strength on the handle, it refused to budge an inch.

   “I’m sorry,” said Seamus quietly as Alex admitted defeat and slid down the wood, sobs rattling up his chest as tears fell from his eyes. “Man, I am so sorry.” Alex let himself be hugged as rage and grief tore through him. It wasn’t fair, she hadn’t done anything to them, no one in that courtroom had. It was mindless cruelty, violence for violence’s sake. But what did he expect from Lord Voldemort?

   Sir Woofsalot crept up to the Watchers on the floor, and nuzzled his tiny, delicate head against Alex’s worn out jeans. Alex hiccupped and reached over to stroke his soft, downy fur. The puppy set about licking his fingers and palm like he could absorb the sorrow right through his skin, then hopped into his lap and curled into a ball.

   Puff, for once, was silent. He regarded the Watchers and the dog from a distance, his burnt teddy held protectively in his arms as Alex’s cries slowly subsided. He looked at one point like he was going to speak to them, then he changed his mind and twiddled his claws instead. “Poor Teddy,” he muttered to himself, rubbing the burnt ear of his bear.

   Eventually, Alex felt composed enough and let go of Seamus, resting his hand on Sir Woofsalot and his head on the door. It was oddly warm.

   “Do you think the others got out?” asked Seamus, his voice sounding strangely loud against the near silence of Alex’s house. The only other noise was the ticking of the grandfather clock, and the occasional coo of a pigeon.

   “If they got to an exit,” said Alex wiping his eyes and blowing his nose on his hanky as Woofsy pawed at his t-shirt. “Then yes, they could have done what we did. I’m sure most of them made it home.” He had to believe that for now; he would allow himself time later to check.

   “So what do we do now?” asked Puff in a voice far more scared than his usual petulance. Seamus sat back on his knees, an looked at Alex in trepidation.

   Alex, got to his feet, Sir Woofsalot under his arm, and Seamus followed suit. “We have,” he said, breathing deeply and steadily. “Three lost students to find. Two Horcruxes, and a very valuable amulet.” Puff beamed. “And when we do, we need to get them back where they belong, safely.”

   “And the Voldemorts?” said Seamus, worry creased in his eyes.

   “I believe,” said Alex with a mad hint to his voice. “We owe them a one way ticket to Hell. Don’t you?”

 


	2. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

Chapter One -

   Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

 

I walk a lonely road   
The only one that I have ever known   
Don't know where it goes   
But it's home to me and I walk alone

  
I walk this empty street   
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams   
Were the city sleeps   
And I'm the only one and I walk alone   
I walk alone, I walk alone

 

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me   
My shallow heart’s the only thing that's beating   
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me   
'Til then I'll walk alone

 

Greenday

   She was almost certain, as far as she could tell, that this was what death must feel like. It was dark and cold, and frightfully alone. For what seemed like a very long time all she was really aware of was the throbbing inside her skull, the pounding in her brain, and nothing else had any meaning whatsoever. Limbs seemed miles away, tongue like sandpaper scraping on concrete, eyes like bottomless pits of darkness. It wasn’t great.

   After a time though, the murkiness began to clear. It wasn’t like the darkness lessened, but more rather everything else started to come back to her. Hermione wasn’t sure how long it took her to remember that was her name, or why she was struggling to remember it in the first place, but it made her feel a good deal better when she did.

   It was a good job she did, because when somebody called out “Hermione?” she was able to appreciate that they meant her. She also became aware her shoulder was being shaken; her fingers flexed out in response, her eyelids squeezed together and a moan escaped the back of her throat.

   “Hermione are you okay?” said the girl’s voice. “Wake up, you’re scaring us.”

   She didn’t know who was speaking, or if she did she couldn’t remember at that moment with her eyes still firmly shut. There was something else snagging at her thoughts though, pulling her mind backwards. A vision of a classroom swam around in her brain, and of performing a spell. For a moment that jarred her train of thought, loose as it was, before she remembered that magic was a part of her everyday life. Though perhaps it hadn’t always been?

   “Hermione,” hissed the girl. “Madam Pince is going to find us and tell us off! Wake up!”

   Hermione managed another groan, and heard a second girl say. “I think she’s coming round.” That was all the warning Hermione received before she was slapped good and hard across the face.

   “Yargh!” she shrieked as her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright, causing the two girls who had been talking to rock backwards to avoid smacking heads. “Shh! Shh!” hissed a mousy haired girl, holding her finger in front of her lips. “She’ll deduct points from Gryffindor!”

   “And Ravenclaw,” added a plump black girl massaging her hand where, Hermione could only guess, she had just hit her. The black girl had a beautiful round face, with big glossy lips and a fat afro tamed back with a multicoloured headband.

   “Lisa Turpin,” said Hermione slowly, as the names popped into her brain to match who she was seeing. “And...Lavender Brown.” The two girls looked at each other.

   “Yeah,” said Lavender, unsure. “You alright?”

   “What happened?” Hermione looked about her. She was sat in the middle of a library stack, several books littered around her and the other girls where it looked like they’d been dropped. She inwardly winced and automatically reached over and picked a volume that was open on its spine to close it and rest it on the carpet again.

   They were in Hogwarts, her school, it was all coming flooding back to her now. She loved this place, she always felt safe and reassured here. So why was there a raging sense of uneasiness growing in her stomach.

   “You fainted,” said Lavender, her eyes wide. “Mid-sentence. You were telling us what you’d done for your charms homework, how you managed that levitation spell already.”

   “Levitation spell?” said Hermione, pulling her eyes away from the stacks (they were in the beginners Charms section). “That’s a first year spell?”

   “No need to rub it in,” said Lisa with a light Bristol accent, standing up and offering her hand out for Hermione to take. Hermione wasn’t sure if she’d even heard her speak before, she’d had that little to do with the Ravenclaw girl. Why would she and Lavender Brown hanging out in the library with her, talking about spells they could do in their sleep?

   Hang on, she thought as she took Lisa’s hand and let herself be pulled to her feet. She hadn’t been in the library.

   “I was in the History of Magic classroom, the old one...” but at that she broke off, as she tried to steady herself on her feet. She was wearing a pair of heeled boots she’d never seen before in her life. Her jeans were extremely tight and sitting far too low on her hips, and the combination of the two made it so hard to balance she had to keep a hold of Lisa for support.

   “No,” said Lavender sweetly, shaking her head. “We’ve been here for a while, maybe that’s where you were before though and the fall made you lose a bit of memory?” She creased her forehead. “We should get you to the nurse, what’s her name again?”

   “I don’t need to see Pomfrey,” said Hermione sharply, even as she swooned again and her head pulsated with every heartbeat. “I was doing a spell, with Harry, and Ron-”

   “Harry Potter?” said Lisa, interrupting her. “Doubt that very much.”

   “Who’s Ron?” said Lavender. And it was this that finally made Hermione’s blood really run cold.

   “Ron Weasley,” she said carefully, her thoughts suddenly becoming very clear. She had been doing a spell with the boys, but there were two other people there too. Draco Malfoy, and Harry’s sister. A girl from another reality.

   “Is he one of the original students?” asked Lavender encouragingly. “I haven’t met many of them yet.”

   Hermione still felt like her tongue was as dry as a bone as she ran it over her teeth. “You’ve...you’ve had a crush on him for about a year.”

   Lavender raised her eyebrows at Lisa. “Is he good looking?”

   Hermione let go of Lisa and grabbed a shelf on the stack to support her instead. Her feet weren’t hurting in the boots, but she had never worn heels like this and had no idea how to steady herself properly. Plus her head felt like she’d just been in a washing machine for the past several hours.

   “How long was I out?” she croaked, realisation dawning on her with horrifying certainty.

   The girls shrugged. “Maybe five minutes,” said Lisa. Hermione looked at her polished nails, the foreign jewellery, the binding top and floaty sleeves. There was something heavy around her neck too, and when she held it out she could see it was an old key, polished and secured on a silver chain.

   “Oh no,” she uttered, feeling her head go light again. Harry said he was out for several hours when he crossed over to Draco’s world, then Draco and Sarah for about an hour when they come to her universe. Did that mean...?

   “No,” she said again, more panicked. “No, no it’s not possible, we were sending them back, the spell was perfect, no – I – no-”

   “Hermione,” said Lisa, taking her by the shoulders. “Calm down, you’re fine, everything’s okay.”

   She thought she was going to be sick. She’d never been so scared in her entire life, the fear was paralysing. She was trapped, stranded in a foreign reality, with no way to contact home, no way to send for help.

   Or maybe there was? Wasn’t that what they been doing, trying to send Draco and Sarah home – maybe she’d got caught in the wake of the crossover, maybe Ron and Harry both had. They could use the same spell to get home again.

   “Do you know where Harry is?” she asked the two bewildered looking girls. They looked even more bewildered after that.

   “Harry...Potter?” asked Lavender slowly. Hermione nodded. “Why on Earth would you want to find him, we’ve spent the last week practically hiding from him.”

   “Something’s changed,” said Hermione breathlessly, scooping up what she assumed to be her bag from the floor. “I need to find him immediately.”

   Lisa shrugged. “Okay, but don’t say we didn’t warn you. He’s actually on one of those tables at the back.” She barely had time to point before Hermione was off, shaky but determined in what she now accepted to be her doppelganger’s boots. Another universe, another reality. The part of her that didn’t want to run around screaming in terror was absolutely enthralled.

   She only stacked twice on her heels on her way to the back of the library, but both times she was able to grab onto a desk or a shelf to stop her slamming into the carpet. Why on Earth would her counterpart choose to wear such ridiculous things? Harry had said she was very similar to herself, perhaps even more introverted. What could of possessed her to put on such impractical footwear?

   She was so caught up in musing about her doppelganger’s psychology, that she surprised herself when she rounded a corner and came face to face with Harry Potter, Parvati Patil and Terry Boot. Parvati was sat next to Harry, her legs crossed towards him as she leant over his work. Terry had his back to her, but as the other two raised their heads he turned around to face her.

   The atmosphere was chilly to say the least.

   “What do you want Granger?” asked Harry coldly, and Hermione felt a twist in her insides. Her hope that Harry and Ron had been caught in the wake too didn’t seem very likely with that look of contempt on his face.

   “Granger?” she repeated weakly.

   Parvati flicked her pony tail. “That is your name, isn’t it?”

   Hermione blinked. “Um...I guess.”

   “So what do you want?” said Harry, slightly louder. “Unless your boyfriend’s miraculously popped back up and un-kidnapped my sister you can bloody well jog on.”

   She frowned and looked at all three of them. Harry and Parvati were scowling, but Terry merely frowned, regarding her from behind frameless glasses. She knew this Ravenclaw about as much as the one that had just slapped her across the face. They’d done a transfiguration experiment together once, but in five years at school that pretty much summed up their relationship. And Harry...well there was no doubt that this was not her Harry. She’d never seen such a look on his face before towards anyone, let alone her.

   “My boyfriend?” she repeated. She knew there were more pressing matters at hand, but she wasn’t wholly convinced what to tell and what to conceal yet, so she might as well get her bearings.

   Parvati rolled her eyes and sneered. “Trying to deny it now he’s shown his true colours? You knew he betrayed the school, and now he’s disappeared with Sarah and it’s all your fault.”

   Hermione closed her eyes, then opened them. “Are you talking about Draco?” she said in disbelief. Well, now that kiss certainly made a little more sense.

   Harry clenched his fists. “Oh go away,” he snapped. “We haven’t got time for your little games. When the Ministry finds my sister your snakey boy toy is going to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban, my dad will make sure of it.”

   Hermione knew it was entirely inappropriate, but she laughed. It did not placate Harry’s mood.

“I SAID-” he cried, but Hermione composed herself in a flash.

   “Draco Malfoy has not _kidnapped_ Sarah,” she hissed, slamming her hands down on the table beside Terry Boot. “He’s been protecting her with every last ounce of strength he has this past week.” She looked Harry up and down. “He was right about you.”

   Harry had stood up and knocked his chair back. His face was very white. “Do you know where she is?” he uttered in a small voice. Parvati’s mouth was hanging open, Terry was still watching on in fascination.

   Hermione stood up and straightened her clothes, keeping her balance thankfully on the boots. She sighed and rubbed her head. “Well, I knew where they were, but I’m getting a horrible feeling the spell didn’t work properly.”

   “What are you talking about?” said Terry, narrowing his eyes.

   “What spell,” said Harry.

   She looked at the three of them. “Am I correct,” she began addressing Harry. “That last November your body was taken over by another version of yourself, a different Harry?”

   Panic swept over Harry and Parvati’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. By now the only person who was still sitting was Terry, and his eyes moved from Harry and Parvati on one side of the table, to Hermione on the other. Harry and Parvati seemed to be switching between ignoring the Ravenclaw and looking horrified at him.

   Hermione though had no doubt that this Harry did know what she was talking about, even if Terry didn’t. And at this point, she didn’t care if he knew or not. “I can’t help you if you mess me around,” she said disapprovingly. “You were briefly replaced by the Harry Potter of my world, then last week, for some unknown reason, Draco Malfoy and your sister were thrown from this reality into mine where they have remained ever since.”

   “That’s,” spluttered Parvati. “That’s totally insane, I don’t know what-”

   But Harry interrupted her. “What are you talking about,” he snapped. “Do you know where Sarah is?”

   Hermione rolled her eyes, unmoved. This Harry Potter wasn’t all that nice, despite his apparent concerns. “We just tried to do the spell to send them both back here, but something must have gone wrong because _I’m_ now here.”

   Harry looked at Parvati, then back to Hermione. Terry seemed to have been completely forgotten. “You...tired to send them home?”

   Hermione gave a long shrug. “They could be here for all I know,” she said honestly. “They’d be in the Old History of Magic classroom-”

   It was like her words lit him up with electricity. With one swift motion, his belongings were violently swiped into his satchel, and he was sprinting for the door before Hermione had time to draw breath.

   “Harry wait!” cried Parvati, doing likewise with her stuff, charging down through the stacks and heading along the library to a chorus of ‘shhs’. Hermione turned to go after them, but Terry Boot caught her arm as she turned. She looked down at him.

   He eyed her up for a second. “I’m sorry,” he said measuredly. “But – what?”

   Hermione looked anxiously after the two Gryffindors that, from the sounds of the banging doors, had already left the library. “I really should go after them,” she said, edging along. Terry waved a hand and began clearing up his things and putting them sensibly into his rucksack.

   “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said. His accent was subtle and Hermione wasn’t sure where to place it, somewhere up north certainly, perhaps Manchester, or Yorkshire. When he stood he was taller than her, not as tall as Ron but probably Draco’s height. “You can explain on the way.”

   “I’m not sure,” she said as they strolled out of the study section and back into the main library. “What do you know about it?”

   “That Harry supposedly defeated You-Know-Who last November,” replied Terry matter-of-factly.   “But he never wants to talk about it, _ever.”_ Hermione saw Lavender and Lisa gawping at them as they walked past, but she didn’t have the energy to explain to them other than to give a little wave. “Then last Sunday we – you, me, Ziggy and Parv – are having this argument about it, how it wasn’t fair and about Seamus Finnigan. And I mean Harry was _screaming_ at you, you told us to stop, then _boom!_ We’re all knocked to our feet.”

   Hermione threw an apologetic look to Madam Pince for the noise as they left the library, then thought about what Terry had said. “Ziggy?”

   “Yeah,” said Terry. “You know, Harry.”

   Hermione blinked. “Why’d you call him Ziggy?”

   Terry pulled a face. “Well,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I suppose technically I should call him Aladdin Sane, but that’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it?”

   That didn’t mean anything to Hermione, but she decided to get back to the issue at hand. “Then what happened?” she said. “After the explosion?”

   Terry held a door open for her as they quickly walked up to the old History of Magic Classroom. “Nothing we thought, but then Harry couldn’t find Sarah, then Blaise Zabini said Malfoy was missing and a manhunt began. But they’d vanished, there’s no trace of them.”

   Hermione groaned. “Where did you guys have this argument, it wasn’t anywhere near the old History room was it?”

   Terry rubbed the woolly beanie on his head. “Yeah,” he said after a minute. “Now you mention it, I think we were directly above it.”

   Hermione sighed, allowing herself a small amount of relief. “Oh Harry, Harry,” she tsked. She might have been cross, smug even, if the situation wasn’t so horrible.

   They began up a flight of stairs. “What is it you know then?” Terry prompted, shifting the bag on his shoulder. “What were you talking about back there?”

   “That wasn’t your Harry that defeated You-Know-Who last November,” she explained. “It was mine. He accidently crossed over from our reality to yours, and then...” she flung her hands out to illustrate the carnage that was what happened in Germany.

   Terry narrowed his eyes. “What?” he said simply.

“Alternate realities, parallel universes,” said Hermione. The notion was too common place to her now to give it the grandeur it probably deserved. “Different worlds branching off for every significant decision made.”

   Terry inclined his head. “You know that’s nuts, right? ”

   Hermione raised her eyebrows. “He says whilst standing in a magic school?”

   “That’s not the same,” he argued. “That’s a reasonable amount of nuts, it’s not so hard to understand there are things in the world that you don’t know about. It’s a _whole,”_ he said, elongating the word. “Other ball game to expect me to believe that people can just hop from one universe to another.”

   “Well they’re not supposed to,” said Hermione irritably. “It’s caused a serious amount of problems!”

   “Like you being here?” suggested Terry with a raised eyebrow.

   Hermione threw her hands up them slapped them back down on her thighs. “You don’t believe me? Fine. But you guys arguing was what caused Draco and Sarah to jump realities, it’s your fault this all happened. And we just tried to send them back but I think I got caught up with them so now...” she rubbed her eyes and they came away silvery. She stopped and stared at them.

   Terry rolled his eyes. “You just smudged your make-up,” he said, licking his thumb and rubbing the side of her face. She stared at him until he was done. “Shall we?” he asked, indicating they should start walking again.

   “So...now,” she carried on. “I’m stuck here and it’s horrendous.”

   “I deeply apologise,” said Terry, holding open another door. “That our parallel universe is so unaccommodating to you.”

   “Oh shut up,” griped Hermione. “We’re here.”

   In fact they were still down the corridor from the old History classroom, but Harry and Parvati were already walking back to meet them. “There’s no one there,” said Parvati in a slightly accusing tone.”

   Hermione felt her heart sink a little. “Maybe they already left?”

   Harry, who had been looking downcast too, perked up. “She probably went to the common room.” He spun on his heels and started off towards the Gryffindor tower.

   “Now wait just a minute here,” said Terry, catching up to him. “You have got some explaining to do.”

   “We can’t,” snapped Parvati as she fell into step, leaving Hermione to keep up behind. “Ministry’s orders.”

   “Too late,” said Terry with a grin. “Herm’s already told me all about the alternate universe stuff.”

   Harry and Parvati stopped in their tracks and glared at Hermione. She couldn’t help but shrink away a little. “You’re just like him,” sneered Harry. “Thinking you can come over here, mess around with peoples’ lives. We didn’t tell him for a reason, it’s been KILLING me!”

   “Whoa,” said Terry, all humour gone from his tone. “Whoa, mate, calm down, I was kidding-”

   “Well we’re not,” hissed Parvati. “We were sworn to secrecy, I couldn’t even tell my sister, and you show up and start blabbing! You’re just like the other Hermione – it’s none of your business!”

   “Guys, are you serious?” asked Terry in a small voice, but anger was bubbling out of Hermione.

   “None of my _business!”_ she shrieked. “This is _your_ fault! Terry told me where you lost your temper, that you were screaming about Harry taking over your body, it was over the old History of Magic classroom, right where Sarah and Draco were standing! YOU sent them to my reality, and the thanks I get for trying to send them back is to get stuck here myself!”

   She took a deep breath and clenched her shaking fists.

   “No,” stammered Harry. “No I don’t believe you.”

   Hermione huffed. “I don’t care if you do or not, that’s what happened.”

   Harry looked at Parvati. “Then, why didn’t we go through, if I was the one-?”

   “Because the Dimensional Hotspot is outside that classroom, they would have been sucked through once it opened regardless of how it happened.”

   Harry looked gutted, Parvati peeved, like it was still somehow Hermione’s fault. Terry, despite being the tallest of the group, looked diminished. “You’re not joking, are you?” he said.

   Harry shook his head. “No, she’s really telling the truth,” he said staring at the floor. “Another Harry took my place, did all that stuff, got Seamus killed-”

   “He did not!” interrupted Hermione fervently. “He begged Seamus and Parvati not to come, and tried everything he could to save Seamus.”

   “You weren’t there,” growled Harry.

   “Neither were you!” fired back Hermione.

   “He had no business,” shouted Parvati. “Manipulating us like that!”

   “ENOUGH!” shouted Terry. The other three stopped and looked at him. “We can play the blame game all morning, or we can go and see if Sarah and Malfoy have gone back to your common room, agreed?”

   Parvati took Harry’s hand. “Sorry Terry,” she mumbled.

   “Are you saying you believe us?” asked Harry. Terry threw up his hands.

   “Hey,” he said with raised eyebrows. “I kept begging you to tell me, you almost did last week, and now it seems like for the first time in a year someone is willing to give me some answers.” He shrugged at Hermione. “We do go to a magic school, who am I to say what’s beyond the realms of possibility?”

 

***

 

   Ron Weasley did not feel very well at all. His head was throbbing and his mouth tasted of blood. Bright light was beaming onto his closed eyelids begging them not to open, and his left elbow stung.

“Ron?”

   Someone unfamiliar was calling his name as he swam back into consciousness. He wasn’t sure how long he’d blacked out for, but he almost didn’t care. He didn’t want to have to face any more trouble after what had just happened at the Ministry. He’d rather just go back to sleep.

   Why was he asleep though, he thought suddenly as his senses came back to him. What had just happened?

   “C’mon Ron buddy, wake up!”

   He really had no idea who the voice could belong to, it certainly wasn’t Harry or any of his brothers. Even Dean Thomas or Seamus Finnigan he was sure he would have recognised. He felt his eyes flick from side to side under their lids, preparing themselves for what would happen when the beaming light on the other side finally reached them. Even the thought of it made his head hurt more.

   “Do you think we should call someone?”

   “Who?” asked a second person. Ron was pretty sure they were both male. There was something strange about their voices though, something about the way they spoke which wasn’t sounding quite right to him.

   “I dunno dude,” said the first voice. “But he’s not wakin’ up, what do you think?”

   In response, Ron let out a cross between a moan and a growl. He was aware he was lying on concrete and it was really starting to become uncomfortable.

   “Hey Ron,” said the second voice, and he felt hands gently shake his shoulder. “You in there?”

   “Bloody Hell,” croaked Ron through dry lips, and slowly, he blinked his eyes and forced himself into a sitting position. “What’s going on?”

When his vision returned fully he could see two teenage boys crouching over him, looking down in concern. He had no idea who either of them were.

   Panicked, he looked at where he was sitting and realised with even more dread he didn’t know where that was either. It was like a large concrete rectangle with coloured lines painted on it and a chain metal fence running round the perimeter. There were lots of people standing around, a lot of them looking at Ron. To the left was a field with more people on, running around and generally enjoying the sunshine, and to the right a road with Muggle cars on. The sky was azure blue and cloudless, and the air was warm with a taste of humidity to it. Ron did his best to steady his breathing.

   In front of him the two boys were still watching on, their hands on their knees looking at him with genuine worry lining their facial features. One of them, a lad with light blond hair, bronze skin and his t-shirt tucked into the back of his shorts thus affording a very good look at his toned torso, was holding an orange ball, slightly bigger than a quaffle. The other boy was black with extremely short hair, wearing a navy t-shirt and beige knee length shorts. He reached out and took Ron’s shoulder.

   “Hey Ron, you feeling okay?” It was the second voice, though the knowledge didn’t bring him much comfort. He really had no idea if he was okay or not. He was sitting outside on a concrete rectangle when he had been standing in a classroom. Had someone moved him, had performing the spell somehow knocked him out?

   The black boy took his hand and pulled him shakily to his feet, and the people who had been staring slowly went back to throwing their own orange balls at each other, bouncing them off the concrete and occasionally aiming them into a hoop suspended several feet off the ground.

   Ron shook his head and tried to ease the terrible headache.

   “What’s going on?” he asked again blearily, rubbing his eyes and trying to grasp what was really happening around him.

   “We were playing and you collapsed,” said the black boy simply.

   “You went down man,” added the other boy helpfully, spinning the ball between his hands. “Like a tree being chopped.”

   “We might need to get you to the hospital,” carried on the black boy, ignoring his friend. Ron ignored them both. He had not been playing any game, that was for sure.

   He had been at school and they were doing a spell. Slowly the details came back to him. They had being trying to help Malfoy, but he wasn’t really Malfoy. He was a different Malfoy. That did and did not make sense to him at the same time, but then he remembered there was a girl as well. She knew Harry somehow.

   “Parallel Universe!” he suddenly said to the two boys looking at him, and this caused them to look even more confused than they had been before. “God damn Draco bloody Malfoy!” he ranted and started to pace. “We tried to send them back – to their world – they must have sent me...” He trailed off. Did that make sense?

   “Definitely time for the ER,” said the black boy, much calmer than his face looked. Ron shook his head, the pain slightly better.

   “I don‘t want to go to a hospital,” he insisted. “I need to talk to someone…anyone.” He had to find Harry and Hermione. At this rate, he’d be happy to see Draco Malfoy again. If only to hit him.

   “Hey, no worries, no worries,” said the blond boy, still spinning the ball between his hands. “No hospital, you can talk to us about anything.” The black boy didn’t look convinced but he didn’t say anything.

   Ron pressed his fingers into his temples. I don’t even know who you are, he thought angrily. But the other boy solved his dilemma for him.

   “Hey Chris,” he said quietly, “how bout you grab your keys and we run him home?”

The blond boy, Chris apparently, smiled in relief and threw the ball into the black boy’s waiting hands. “Yeah alright, ” he said happily. “Molly will know what to do.” He ran off to where a pile of belongings were and scooped them all up. Ron looked down at himself for the first time and saw he was wearing knee length shorts, a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and a kind of hat with a peak at the back of his head. He yanked it off and saw a tick emblazoned on what would actually be the front. The black boy laughed.

   “Woah, don’t take that off, you’re brains might fall out,” he joked, and stuffed the hat back on Ron’s head, backwards like it had been before. It hurt but Ron grimaced and said nothing.

   He had jumped to a parallel universe, just like Harry had done, that had to be it. He’d swapped bodies and these boys thought they knew him. Something must have gone wrong when he and the others had tried to send Sarah and Malfoy home.

   “Bugger,” said Ron, and lent on his bare knees. He was in big, big trouble.

   The blond boy, Chris, ran back over and threw a jumper with a hood on to each of his companions. “Let’s do it!” he said in an over excited voice and smacked Ron on the back in what he obviously thought was a friendly gesture. Ron gritted his teeth again.

   “Where are you taking me?” he asked. “I – I don’t think I should move.” He remembered how the letter he and Hermione had sent to Harry in the parallel universe before had arrive at the point where he’d crossed over. The black boy looked at Chris.

   “Home,” he said simply.

   Ron looked around again. “But...I don’t live anywhere near here?”

   The black boy blinked. “Definitely the ER,” he said simply. The other boy though, Chris, smacked him on the back the way he had done to Ron.

   “Nah man, let’s just get him back to Molly, she’ll fix him up!”

   Ron considered them both. It didn’t seem like they intended him any harm, they apparently knew his family, or his mother at least, and right now he’d give anything to see a friendly face. He shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “Okay.”

   They walked over to an old but pretty cool looking convertible, it was a burgundy colour that would have clashed horribly with Ron’s hair if it hadn’t have been hidden under the hat. Ron got in the front by the driver’s seat; it took him a moment to realise it was the wrong way round.

   “Why’s your car backwards?” he asked before thinking. The black boy gave him another strange look as he slid into the back, but Chris pretended to look outraged.

   “Hey, no bad mouthing my baby! Rule number one _mi compadre.”_

   Ron shook this off and pulled his seat belt on, choosing to hold onto the jumper he’d been given rather than wear it. It was even hotter than he remembered it being over the last few days, but he still heard the old familiar rumble of thunder in the background.

   It didn’t take long to get where they were going. Chris stopped the car on the pavement by what could only be described as an enormous house on a clean and tidy road filled with houses of the exactly the same size. Ron didn’t move.

   “This…this is my house?” he stammered. It was just so…well, _posh._ The black boy leaned forward to look at Ron.

   “Just how hard did you hit your head?”

   “And why the Hell are you talking like James Bond?” asked Chris as he grabbed the keys from the ignition and jumped out the car.

   Ron nervously licked his lips, his tongue still sore from when he bit it before. He wanted to ask who James Bond was but he didn’t trust himself to open his mouth. He suddenly didn’t know if he wanted to go inside, who knew what he might find? But the other two were already striding ahead so Ron had no choice but to follow.

   Chris was in the process of putting on the t-shirt that had been tucked in the back of his shorts; it read ‘East County High Football Team’ with a picture of a raging bull, and made Ron think of Dean Thomas with his West Ham posters. Once dressed, Chris bowled through the front door as if it were his own house, and the black boy did the same. Ron crept in afterwards, the least confident of the three. He stepped into the spacious hallway, and was relieved to be greeted with some of that familiar Weasley clutter; ornaments, welly boots, newspapers. There was something that didn’t feel right though.

   He was soon distracted by the sight of his sister running down the staircase. Her red hair streamed out behind her, but what caught Ron’s attention first was the tartan skirt that barely reached her thighs, followed by the white knee length socks, blouse with one too many buttons undone, far too much make up and mobile phone attached to her ear.

   “Ginny what on Earth are you wearing?” he spluttered and his two companions turned to look at him. Ginny stopped and raised an eyebrow.

   “It’s called school uniform. And what’s with the voice?”

She carried on to the front door, phone still at her ear. She swung round just as she pulled it open and addressed her brother again.

   “And nobody calls me Ginny. Freak.” She waltzed out, slamming the door. Ron turned mutely to look at the other two boys, and Chris was shaking his head.

   “Dude,” he said, reproachfully. “Nobody calls her Ginny.”

   “Christopher, Alexander James?” called a voice from somewhere in the house. Chris broke into a smile and nudged the other boy in the ribs before running off in the direction of the voice. The black boy, Alexander James, rolled his eyes and followed. Ron did the same.

   They entered the kitchen where Molly Weasley, Ron’s mum, was baking about a million cakes, all covered in different icing with different flavours and fillings. She was wearing pink shorts, a cream t-shirt with a kitten on the front and orange flip-flops. Ron wasn’t sure he’d even seen his mum wearing so little and he was momentarily embarrassed; no matter how hot it got, he’d never seen her without at least a cardi. But then, the air was so close and humid outside it wasn’t all that surprising. He himself didn’t even own shorts anymore, but his counterpart seemed happy enough wearing them.

   At present Molly seemed to be stirring an impossibly chocolaty mixture, occasionally throwing in handfuls of white chocolate chips. “Hello boys,” she said cheerfully, pushing hair out of her face and wiping even more cake mixture about her person. “These are for Ginevra’s class something-or-other,” she shrugged her shoulders causing a little cloud of icing sugar to rise off them. “There’s more than enough if you’d like a few.”

   It would probably have been a very comforting sight to Ron, but there was again just something wrong with the scene that was making him nervous.

   “Thanks Molly you’re the best,” chirped Chris and grabbed the nearest blue cupcake. “A.J. and I just rescued Ron from a fight with the basketball court,” he said through a mouthful of cake.

   A.J. rolled his eyes again as he reached for a cake himself. “Ron collapsed is all,” he assured Molly, who had suddenly looked very alarmed. “He said he didn’t want to go to hospital so we thought the best option was to bring him home. Great cake by the way.”

   “Mm, great cake,” agreed Chris, half way through his second.

   Ron, unusually, had lost his appetite. He had realised what was bothering him. There was no magic evident in this room whatsoever. No charms doing the washing up, the mirror was stubbornly reflecting exactly what was in front of it and the clock just had twelve boring numbers on it. And to make matters worse his mum was talking in the strange way his sister had too. She bustled over to him.

   “Oh let me take a look at that elbow,” she said concerned, but Ron backed away.

   “I’m fine mum,” he lied, not wanted to be fussed over.

   “Nonsense dear,” she said firmly. “I can see where the blood ran down your arm, just let me-”

   “Mum I said I’m fine!” he snapped. He didn’t mean to yell at her, but he was starting to lose what little grasp he had on reality. Nothing he was seeing was giving him any answers; in fact it was only giving him more questions. Molly stopped and put her hands on her hips.

   “Why are you talking like that Ron?” she asked, not exactly cross but her tone no longer warm either.

   Ron finally lost his temper and flung his arms out in exasperation, almost hitting a stack of mini bakewells. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” he cried. “I’m talking normally, it’s everyone else who’s gone mental!”

   A.J. frowned. “He sounds…British.”

   Ron rubbed his forehead again. “That’s because I AM British! Why the Hell wouldn’t I be?”

   “You’ve never been before?” questioned A.J., putting down the cake he was about to bite into.

   Ron rubbed his eyes. “I have been my whole life, thank you very much. What else could I possibly be?” Some detached part of his brain was working on an intricate plan to dismember Draco Malfoy.

   Molly looked very ill, and stared mutely at her son. But Chris seemed to think he was being had. “No,” he said grinning. “No you’ve been American, I’d have noticed if you hadn’t.”

   Now it was Ron’s turn to stare, horror welling up inside him. American, that was the accent. “Are we in America?”

   A.J. frowned. “Yes,” he said slowly.

   “Where, where exactly?” Ron asked. He had almost no concept of American geography, but he needed to at least try and put a name to it.

   “I told you we should have taken him to the ER,” said A.J. again.

   Chris licked the icing off his fingers and perched on the edge of the table. “Dude are you serious?” he asked, waving his hand in front of Ron’s face. He swatted him away.

   “Yes I’m serious!” he cried. “What town are we in?”

   “Cleveland,” said Molly softly. “Ohio.”

   Ron didn’t feel any better. “Is that a big town?”

   His mother suddenly wiped her hands on her apron, whipped it off and grabbed a set of keys. “Hospital, now,” she barked to the other boys.

   “No!” said Ron, stepping away from them. “A Muggle hospital won’t help!”

   The two boys looked confused at each other, but Molly froze like a statue, the car keys swinging from her fingers. “What did you say?” she whispered after what felt like a minute of silence. Ron shifted his feet uncomfortably.

   “I don’t want to see any medics,” he said. “They won’t help, trust me.”

   She managed to give her head the tiniest of shakes. “No,” she whispered. “What was that word you used?”

   He frowned at her. “What – Muggle?”

   Molly sucked in a loud breath of air. “Christopher,” she said, turning on her heels. “Alexander James, I’m afraid you’re going to have to excuse us.”

   “But-” said Chris.

   “Right now!”

   The two boys looked at one another. Chris picked up his own car keys from the table, grabbed one last cupcake, and the two of them headed out of the kitchen, closing the door behind them.

   “Where did you hear that word?” hissed his mother, a look of terror in her eyes as she threw her keys back on the window sill. Now it was Ron’s turn to be confused.

   “What – Muggle? It’s just a word, why wouldn’t I know it?”

   “You’ve never known it until today, so you must have heard it somewhere,” Molly cried, sitting down at the table with a thump. She was wringing her hands and looked very distressed. Ron frowned. He was making things worse, but he didn’t know how else to react. He desperately wanted Harry and Hermione to walk through the door and just fix everything.

   “I’m really sorry mum I...I didn’t mean to upset you,” he mumbled.

   “Stop talking like that,” she snapped, rubbing her hands on a tea towel, trying to get most of the icing off.

   “Well how am I supposed to talk,” he snapped back.

   “Like normal!” she cried, flinging down the tea towel. He rubbed his temple, wishing the head ache would ease up.

   “Right,” he said, deciding just to come clean. “Here’s what happened. I was at Hogwarts and Harry activated a Dimensional Hotspot which was supposed to send Malfoy and Sarah home, but I’m thinking it maybe didn’t work.”

   Molly had frozen, staring at her son. “What did you say?”

Ron wasn’t very good at explaining things sometimes, but he carried on anyway. “I’m from another reality, and now I need to get home, like, with a spell or something. Why isn’t there any magic in the house?”

   “Shh!” said Molly, instantly jumping up and closing the window. “Don’t say that word.”

   “It’s just a w-” Ron began to say for the second time but she cut him off.

   “It is _not_ just a word Ronald!” she yelled sitting back down a wagging her finger at him. “There is none of it in this house and there never will be, you shouldn’t even know about it!”

   Ron swallowed, trying to get his thoughts in order. “But why, why not?” Her face turned to thunder, and Ron felt panicky. “Please, I’m not having you on, if you know about…about the ‘M’ word, then can you accept it’s a possibility I’m not from this reality.” He realised how stupid that sounded but it was the truth.

   “Absolutely not young man,” she snapped, rising to her feet once more and seizing the bowl of chocolate mixture to begin beating it furiously again. “That is quite enough on the matter, I don’t know how this got into your head but it can come out again right now.”

   “But-” tried Ron.

   “No!” said Molly, tears in her eyes as her stirring halted. “Ronald you are scaring me and I’m begging you to stop, it’s not safe!”

   Ron stared at her with the mixing bowl on her hip, spoon in hand, biting her lip. “You’re scared?” he asked weakly.

   “You have no idea,” she hissed, beating the mixture again. “How hard you father and I have worked to keep this family safe from...that. I want to know this instant who put this idea in your head?”

   Ron’s heart was fluttering like a hummingbird. Real terror was gripping him now; he was stranded in a parallel universe, he had to find Harry or Hermione, maybe they were somewhere here too, back in England perhaps.

   “Do you at least have an owl I could use?” he asked, the idea of trying to use a Muggle telephone stressing him out even further.

   “NO!” shrieked Molly, slamming the mixing bowl down. “You will tell me now who put you up to this, was it Bill? Because it is not funny.”

“I was with Harry Potter,” Ron ploughed on, sticking his chin up. “And Hermione Granger at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There were two people from another reality who had accidently ended up in ours, we were sending them home but then there was an explosion. I blacked out and I woke up outside with those boys in clothes I’d never seen before half way across the world!”

   He breathed in and out. “Now,” he said a little calmer. “If your son’s anything like me, do you think he could come up with anything that imaginative?”

   Molly stared at him. “I,” she said, looking awfully pale. “I’m not sure.”

   “You say I don’t know magic,” said Ron, seized by sudden inspiration. “Get me a wand, I’ll show you _Descendo, Lumos, Accio Cupcake,_ anything you want.”

   Molly gripped onto the wooden table. “We don’t have any wands,” she said quietly.

   “But,” said Ron, his heart in his mouth. “Does that mean you believe me?”

   Molly rubbed icing sugar into her eyes, then tried to shake it away again. “I know my son couldn’t lie to me if his life depended on it,” she said eventually. “His neck gets all red and he repeats everything three times.”

   Ron pulled a face and nodded. That sounded about right.

   “But what you’re saying,” continued Molly. “It’s not possible, it’s not.”

   Ron sighed and sat down. “I know,” he said, pulling at one of the paper cases on the nearest cupcake.   “That’s what I told Harry when he first came back, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and now I’m here. You could do a truth spell on me, I wouldn’t know a thing about my life here.”

   Molly swallowed. “Harry Potter?” she asked. Rod nodded. “That boy...he was killed as a baby, his parents too.”

   A chill ran down Ron’s spine. “He’s dead?” he breathed out in horror. The idea was too horrible. “But then...” he frowned. “If Harry’s dead...You-Know-Who-”

   “Shh!” cried Molly, leaping to her feet. “Don’t say it, don’t even think it!”

   Ron felt sick. “He’s still alive then?”

   Molly clutched her hands together. “Why do you think we fled?” she whispered. “I was making cupcakes.” Ron looked about the colourful kitchen of confectionary. He supposed he had just turned her world upside down.

   “So you moved to America?” he asked.

   “After that happened,” said Molly heavily. “Are you really not my son?”

   Ron chewed his lip. “I am Ron Weasley,” he said. “But not the one you know.”

   Molly stared out of the kitchen window into a back garden with a swimming pool. She sat like that for a long time. “Nicholls,” she said after a time.”

   Ron blinked. “What?”

   “Our name is Nicholls,” said Molly weakly. “You’ve never known your real name, we moved when you and Ginevra were just babies.”

   “Do you believe me then?” asked Ron hopefully.

   “I guess it could be possible,” she said eventually. “The accent’s very good.”

   “What’s with your accent?” asked Ron almost accusingly.

   Molly sighed. “When we moved, we changed everything, not just our name.” She laughed sadly. “You are Ron Nicholls, of Cleveland, Ohio.”

   “Bloody am not,” muttered Ron, crossing his arms.

   “A man called Kingsley Shacklebolt was our secret keeper, he faked our deaths and hid us over here, complete with a charm to change our accents. After a time it wore off, but by then we’d learned.”

   “And no...” said Ron, pausing to pick his words. “Stuff, with the wooden sticks.” Molly shook her head.

   “Not a drop,” she confessed. “It was the safest way.”

   “Then how am I going to get home?” asked Ron, the panic rising in him again.

   Molly blinked. “What do you mean?”

   “Well,” he said. “I need to at least try and do a spell, what if they can’t pull me back from the other side?”

   “There’s a spell that can do that?” asked Molly. “From the other side, they can pull you back, give me back my son?”

“Yeah,” admitted Ron. “But I can’t just sit here.”

   Molly looked happier. “If there is such a thing,” she said cheerfully, picking up her bowl again. “Then that’s wonderful, I’m sure you’ll be home in no time. There’s no reason for you to risk exposing this family when we’ve hidden so well for so long.”

   “But,” said Ron horrified. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

   Molly Nicholls smiled. “Have a cupcake,” she said, offering him a strawberry frosted one. “And we’ll discuss this a little more when your father gets home.”

 

***

 

   Harry Potter couldn’t bear to open his eyes. His memories were slowly coming back to him, there was the taste of blood in his mouth and his head felt like a marching band was strolling through it. But even without all that he knew in his heart what had happened.

   He’d felt something was wrong the second the spell had started, but he’d ignored it like a fool, hoping rather than really believing it would all go as planned. He ran his tongue around slippery, metallic tasting teeth and squeezed his eyelids even tighter together.

   Someone was calling his name, he could feel people bustling around him as he lay on what was probably the floor. How, he pleaded silently to whoever was listening. How could this have possibly have happened again?

   “Harry are you okay?” He moved his head about, twisting his neck out, and flexed his fingers. He knew that voice.

   “Ron?” he muttered blearily.

   “Harry!” Ron cried back happily. “Harry wake up, you fainted.”

   “Give him some room,” came Hermione’s voice crossly, and the sound of shuffling feet on floorboards greeted Harry’s ringing ears.

   “You guys okay?” he grunted as he prized his eyes open and sat up. He was in the Great Hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, on the floor next to the Gryffindor table. Hermione and Ron were by his side, as was Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas and Ginny Weasley. Harry blinked. Maybe he hadn’t crossed over realities at all, maybe the spell had worked and he’d somehow got down here – it was breakfast time after all. Maybe they’d done the spell just fine, and they’d come down to eat but then everything had taken its toll and he’d fainted. That seemed plausible, didn’t it?

   “Us?” asked Hermione. “We’re fine, what about you, I think you’ve bitten your tongue?”

   “What happened?” Harry asked, rubbing the sore spot on the back of his head. “Did the spell work, did they leave?”

   Hermione and Ron exchanged a glance. “We didn’t try the spell yet,” said Ron, reaching up to the table and picking up a book to hand to Harry.

   “Who’s leaving?” asked Hermione, looking around at the Gryffindors gathered in between their table and the Ravenclaws next to them.

   The hope that had been ballooning in Harry’s chest popped. He scrambled to his feet with the aid of Ginny Weasley, and looked straight at the Slytherin table. There, sat in the middle, flanked by Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, was Draco Malfoy, pointing at laughing at Harry. “Hey Potter!” yelled Malfoy, delighted. “You’ve got something on your head!”

   Ginny tutted, loudly, and spun Harry around. “Honestly,” she seethed as the two of them slammed back into their seats. “You’d think you hadn’t had that scar for your entire life.”   Harry instinctively reached up with his finger, and felt the faint lightning bolt he’d known since he was a baby.

   “Moron,” concurred Ron as he made his way back around the table to his cooling bowl of porridge.

   Hermione was already seated, efficiently buttering her toast. “Did it hurt,” she asked, raising her eyes to Harry’s scar. “Was it You-Know-Who that made you faint?”

   Harry swallowed and tried not to stare at her as he made mental notes. He obviously had travelled to an alternate reality, he accepted with an increasing sense of dread. But it was obviously a _different_ universe to where he had gone before. This seemed to be just like his own reality, but as if...as if...

   He looked around him. As if he’d never had his Dimensional Leap. Everyone was just like they were back home, all the same people, and Draco – or rather Malfoy – hated him as per usual. How could he know for sure though? He couldn’t just come out and ask if anyone knew if he’d travelled to a reality last November, that could be disastrous.

   When he’d met that Watcher, Alex, he’d explained that his would be the only version of a reality where he’d crossed over to Draco’s world, and it would be years before more parallel universes would be created again. The same with Draco’s world. But it made sense that up until he’d gone through the Dimensional Hotspot, new realities would have been created normally, and in the option where he _hadn’t_ smashed the window and crossed into another reality, that would carry on normally. Maybe that’s where he was?

   He realised people were watching him anxiously. He managed a weak smile. “I’m alright,” he lied. “Maybe just not enough sugar in my system – that makes you faint sometimes, yeah?” The lying was far easier than last November, and he hated it.

   Ron liked that train of thought, and pushed him over a large stack of jam on toast. Harry realised he was still clutching the book he had given him, the one he’d said they’d been working on, and Harry now stopped to look at the title. It said _Advanced Potion-Making,_ and was very well thumbed with lots of ink stains. He flicked quickly through it as he picked up a slice of toast to eat, and saw a serious amount of cramped notes written in the margins, finished off with an inscription as he got to the front claiming the book belonged to the ‘Half-Blood Prince’.

   “Maybe there’s a potion in there to make you feel better?” suggested Ron, moving onto eggs and bacon. “Slughorn could tell you what section to look in during the next lesson?”

   Hermione tutted loudly and appeared extremely interested in her orange juice. Harry looked down at the book again. Was he taking Advanced Potions? he thought disbelievingly. This most definitely was an alternate reality if he’d got a high enough OWL to get into that.

   He let the book fall shut and made a non-committal noise to Ron as he finished off his toast. He did feel a little better for eating something, but no amount of jam was going to fix the fact that he was lost in a parallel universe. Again.

   He was really getting bored of this now.

   Last time, he reflected as he picked up another sticky slice of toast and half listened to Ginny talk about Quidditch, last time he had been overwhelmed by panic, terrified by the gulf that lay between him and his home. But having survived that ordeal and made it back to his own universe, and then last week being reunited with Draco and Sarah in his own world, it seemed to diminish his panic somewhat. True, he was lost in a new parallel world, but he knew for certain there were ways he could get back. Whoever was left back home could send another letter to retrieve him, just like last November, or he could attempt to reproduce the spell they had just attempted. Maybe they had done something wrong, and Harry had got caught up in it when Sarah and Draco went back home?

   He looked around at Hermione and Ron. But what if they had been sent to alternate realities too though? he worried. What if Draco and Sarah had as well, what if they hadn’t got home?

   Then all their fates lay in the hands of Severus Snape. Harry shuddered. That was never a position he wanted to be in.

   Hermione and Ginny were talking about homework, and Seamus and Dean were talking about Muggle football; or at least Dean was talking, Seamus was listening patiently like he had done for the past five years. Suddenly Ron’s hand was reaching over and tapping the potion book. “Don’t worry,” he said with a wink. “She’s just jealous the Prince is a potion making genius. She’ll come around.”

   Harry flicked through a few of the middle pages again. “Hmm,” he said, unconvinced. He wanted to ask if they knew who this Prince was, and why his counterpart felt safe to trust his writing. Sitting next to Ginny he was reminded of another book that told people what to do and remembered it had not ended well.

   He looked around the Great Hall as people slowly started to drift off. Being a Saturday they weren’t in hurry to go to lessons, the weather was lovely outside for Autumn and many were keen to make the most of it. Was this what his life could have been like, Harry wondered to himself, a touch melancholy. If he’d never lost his temper after Sirius’ recapture, would this be the life he would be leading?

   But then, he reasoned, there would have been no one to save his family in the other reality, in fact there probably was a place where he’d never shown up and they were all now dead, so it wasn’t good to dwell on that possibility. Also, he reasoned as he took a mouthful of sweet tea, it was going over there that gave him the kick to save Sirius back in his home world, and he most certainly didn’t regret that.

   So where was Sirius here? he wanted to ask. In jail, on the run? Maybe by some miraculous turn of events he had still managed to end up living in that little house on the outskirts of the village? He burned to ask, but wasn’t sure the best way to do it without causing alarm. Surely, even if everything else looked the same from where Harry sat in the school hall, Sirius’ fate would be different to his own world. It had to be.

   Hermione was busy explaining a mock OWL question to Ginny, and Dean was loudly recounting the Premier League table to Seamus as he poked at a muffin. So Harry decided to just risk it, and leant over to Ron opposite him. “About Sirius,” but Ron held up a hand to interrupt him.

   “Mate, honestly, it’s what he wanted, you need your money.”

   Harry raised an eyebrow. That was not what he’d been expecting. Did he want to give Sirius financial help? “I have a lot though,” he offered gingerly. “In Gringotts.”

   Ron was shaking his head. “He was very clear, he had a stash in the house, and he wanted to rest with your parents, it’s what they would have wanted too.”

   Something cold slid down inside Harry. Rest by his parents? Was Sirius...no, he couldn’t believe it.

   Ron gave him a sympathetic smile. “Hey,” he said kindly, eyes flitting to Hermione and back. “Maybe in a couple of weeks we can go visit all three of them, sneak over to Godric’s Hollow and lay some flowers?”

   Harry thought he was going to faint again. His vision tilted and his ears roared. Sirius was dead. “I have to...” he mumbled, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet. “Fresh air.”

   “I’ll come with you,” said Hermione, concerned, but Harry shook his head as he stumbled away.

   “I’ll take your things!” cried Ron as Harry reached the end of the table and heard Malfoy laughing again with his cohorts. He pushed open the double doors and practically ran out into the sunshine flooding the school’s front steps.

   Sirius was dead.

   How? He wanted to go back and ask, but he couldn’t, it would arouse too much suspicion. He carried on stumbling down the steps, one foot falling in front of another. How could there possibly be a world where _Sirius_ was dead too? It was so amazingly unfair.

   Harry stumbled to a halt by the edge of the forest and sucked air in and out of his lungs. “You’re not alone,” he told himself. “You’ve still got Ron, and Hermione, and this isn’t even your world anyway, calm down.” But he felt as if the sky was falling down around him, crushing him. He leant on his knees but that just made it harder to breath, so he stood up again and laced his fingers behind his head, closing his eyes and focusing all his energy on inhaling.

   “You’re going to get back home,” he told himself softly. “Everything will be fine.” There was a light breeze rolling over the school grounds, and he stood for several minutes letting it wash over him until his heart rate slowed.

   Why was he in a third reality? he wondered as he eventually lowered his arms. They had been trying to send Draco and Sarah back home, surely if he was going to accidently go anywhere it would be there? What had brought him here?

   He sat down on the grass and leant up against a tree. Perhaps he was ‘meant’ to be here he wondered, slightly apprehensively. Like he was ‘meant’ to save Sarah and defeat Voldemort, like how Draco was ‘meant’ to rescue the school. He closed his eyes and sighed. Did that mean he should just hang around and wait for someone to attack? He didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

   Maybe he should try and get himself home? Hermione had chewed his ear off enough the past few days about the theory of it all, he was bound to have retained something useful wasn’t he?

   He stood again, brushing grass and dirt from his jeans, jeans he recognised from his own wardrobe funnily enough. But that wasn’t what stopped him dead, as he realised as he leant over there was something bouncing on his chest, underneath his t-shirt. Slowly, he reached inside it, and pulled out a fine chain with a purple amulet on the end of it.

   Alex’s pendent. Harry’s eyes stared at it unseeing for another few minutes. It had to be, the purple gem suspended in the fine nest of silver threading. The very same one he’d received in Limbo, that would supposedly remove the unwanted part of the other Voldemort’s soul and send it back with Draco and Sarah. What in the name of everything magic was this third Harry Potter doing wearing it?

   Harry stared at it, as if expecting an answer, watching it twinkle in the warm morning light. Had Alex given it to this Harry too, was that possible?

   But then Harry dropped the chain and snatched the swinging pendant in his fist. “My wand,” he said out loud to the trees. “The photograph.” Items had travelled across the boundaries of the universes before, maybe that’s what had happened here, maybe this was the very same necklace that Alex had given him.

   But he had needed his old familiar wand, the core it contained and the history they’d had together to defeat Voldemort. And the family portrait of the Potters he had always felt was an essential part of his grieving and moving on process. Why would the amulet have found its way here with him, he didn’t feel connected to it or that he needed it?

   He released it and let it swing, his eyes clouding over angrily. Unless he didn’t need it, and wasn’t really connected to it. Unless it hadn’t worked properly. Unless it had gone wrong. He’d not bothered to check with Alex what exactly it was supposed to do. What if it had pushed a doorway randomly into a nearby universe, and deposited Harry there?

   He began marching over the grass, determined to go to the library and pull out all of the books Hermione had been using. “Alex the Watcher,” he muttered as he crossed the grounds. “If we ever see each other again, we are going to have _words.”_

 

***

 

   _“What?”_ said Draco Malfoy, pushing himself off of the table and crunching across the old History of Magic classroom on the shattered glass from the window. “What did you say?”

   Severus Snape looked paler than usual, if that was at all possible, and he turned from Draco to a stunned Sarah Potter. “I think you both remained here,” he rasped as sunlight glimmered off of the glass shards. “But the other three, Harry, Granger and Weasley.” He stopped and put his hands on his hips. “Travelled to another universe.”

   “We don’t know that,” spluttered Draco, storming around the room, kicking bits of window as he went. He paused by the remains of the frame. “They could have disapparated, or Flooed,” he was thinking of Harry falling into the fireplace at Sirius’ house, clinging to some hope that what Severus was saying wasn’t true.

   “You’re right,” he said oddly graciously, making Draco’s head turn. “We don’t actually know anything. But I am certain that you are in the same universe which you have been stranded in the past week.”

   Sarah looked very faint all of a sudden. Draco crossed quickly over and put his arms around her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

   “Okay?” she asked, glossy eyes looking up at him. “Okay? We’re just as stuck as we were, but now the others are back in _our_ world! Of course I’m not okay!”

   “We don’t know where they are,” said Severus reassuringly.

   “So, what?” demanded Sarah. “They’re in some completely different universe! How will we find them!”

   Severus held up his hands. “Or Draco could be right, maybe they disapparated. We can try a locator spell, and I can send my Patronus. If that doesn’t work, we’ll send a letter out to follow them, much like Granger and Weasley did for Harry last November.”

   Sarah took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself. “What went wrong?” she asked. “Was it the spell? I never should have helped.”

   Severus frowned and went over to inspect the upturned contents of the table they had been preparing the potion on. “Possibly,” he said. “It is always a possibility. But I doubt it, we agonised over the incantation. And your work was perfect.”

   Sarah looked relieved. Draco shook his head suddenly, flinging the last remaining flecks of glass from his hair. “Harry had an amulet,” he said, his common sense coming back to him now the shock was wearing off.

   “What kind of amulet?” said Severus suspiciously.

   Draco sighed and cast his mind back. He knew it was only a few minutes ago that he’d seen it, but it suddenly felt like a lifetime. “Expensive looking. It was a silver chain, with a pendent on the end. A purple stone, suspended in a fine mesh of silver thread, like a nest.”

   Severus glanced over at Sarah, then back at him. “It means nothing to me, why do you think it’s relevant?”

   Draco folded his arms and tried to remember exactly what Harry had said to him. “Harry said it was part of the spell, but no one else knew about it. He said it would ensure that everything that was supposed to return to our world, would. But it seems to have done the opposite.”

   “He interfered with the spell!” cried Severus, colour returning rather quickly to his cheeks. “That idiotic, incompetent-”

   “Hey!” snapped Sarah. “Harry wouldn’t have used it if he didn’t believe it would truly help us.”

   Severus ground his teeth. “I’m sure you believe that Sarah,” he said. “But you don’t know this particular Harry as well as I do. He is reckless and short-sighted-”

   “He is twice the man my own brother is!” Sarah interrupted again, her fists balling. “I don’t know what your problem is-”

   “Guys, guys!” said Draco, waving his hands at them. “Arguing isn’t going to help us.” Sarah harrumphed and crossed her arms, and Severus inclined his head and took a step backwards. “Maybe that amulet did do something to mess up the return spell,” agreed Draco. “Is there any way to research what it could have been?”

   Severus thought a moment. “The Headmaster has a vast knowledge of enchanted gems,” he said. “I suggest we start there.”

   But as he took a step towards the door that lead back out into the corridor, it slammed shut. Everyone froze. “What did that?” whispered Sarah. Draco shook his head. If he had to guess, he’d say it was poltergeist-like behaviour, but the ghosts in Hogwarts kept all the malicious spirits out of the grounds (aside from Peeves, who seemed to be able to do as he pleased).

   Draco moved forward and rattled the knob. “It’s locked,” he said simply. Severus was by him in a flash, firing all sorts of opening spells at the door and it’s handle, but nothing worked.

   “Are we under attack?” asked Sarah.

   The door suddenly, and dramatically, burst open forcing Draco and Severus to jump backwards. A man was standing on the other side, but he was not in the corridor. He was in the entrance hall of an old house with wooden beams and rich red rugs on the floor. “No,” he shouted as he strolled on through. “You are not under attack for once. But apparently I am incapable of leaving you alone for even five minutes without you getting into trouble!”

He was slim and slightly shorter that Draco, with blond highlighted hair and a face with such refined features any Muggle film star would have been envious. He wore a well fitted black tailcoat, with a colourful silk lining and the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His jeans were ripped at the knees and tucked into worn looking pirate boots, and his t-shirt was so faded Draco could barely make out the design. A white terrier puppy bounded around by his feet as he marched into the classroom, and the door swung violently shut again behind them.

   “Who are you?” demanded Severus, his wand already out and pointed at the man’s face. “This school is private property, how did you get in?”

   “Oh chillax Sevy,” said the man patiently. “I’m on your side. Trust me, a lot of Watchers would have ditched you guys by now, you’re an unbelievable lot – even Jane didn’t cause this many problems.” His accent was extremely well spoken, it reminded Draco of his great grandfather on his mother’s side. This man seemed too young to have such a voice.

   “You heard him,” snapped Sarah, her wand raised in her shaking hand. “Who are you and what do you want. We’ve had enough trouble already today.”

   The man rubbed his forehead and became serious. “Don’t you think I know that?” he asked as the white puppy plonked himself on the floor and looked forlornly up at his master.

   “Then what do you want?” asked Severus.

   The man breathed out and shoved his hands on his hips. “Well someone has to fix everything, don’t they?” He looked at all the shattered glass on the floor, sighed, and picked up his left foot to examine the sole of his boot. “Starting with that window,” he muttered.

   Severus scowled and flicked his wand, and instantly all the tiny shards began flying back towards the window frame, reassembling piece by piece.

   “Oh wands are wonderful aren’t they,” exclaimed the man. “No pun intended.”

     Draco finally found his voice. “I know you,” he said, looking the man up and down. “I’ve met you before.”

   “You have?” said Sarah, surprised.

   “We have,” agreed the man happily, extending his hand out towards Draco.

   “But...” said Draco as the last few bit of glass removed themselves from his clothes. “That was a dream?”

   The man made a sound like he was blowing a raspberry. “Pish-posh,” he said. “Dream, reality, what’s the difference?”

   “Quite a lot,” said Severus coldly.

   “What dream?” asked Sarah, her wand still held high.

   Draco looked at the man and rubbed his new figure-eight scar on his right wrist. “After Voldemort cast his killing curse, I had a crazy dream, and when I thought I woke up I was on a couch, by a fire.”

   The man clicked his fingers and pointed at Draco. “My living room,” he affirmed.

   The terrier bound over and set upon the lace trailing down from Draco’s trainer. “And we worked out his name,” Draco carried on, pointing at the puppy. “Sir Woofsalot.”

   “Sir Woofsalot?” repeated Sarah with a raised eyebrow.

   The man opened out his arms. “And I am Alex, the Watcher of your universe.” He dropped his hands and frowned at Draco and Sarah. “Well not you two, you have a different Watcher, with less impressive hair.”

   Severus looked like he was about to lose his patience. “I don’t care what your name is,” he practically snarled. “You will explain to us now, clearly and concisely, what a Watcher is, how you travelled to this school, and, most importantly, why are you here?”

   “Woofsy,” said Alex coldly, though Draco felt the tone was aimed more at Severus than his dog. “Heel.” The puppy abandoned Draco’s trainer, of which he was now chewing the rubber sole, and scampered over. “I already told you,” he said. “I am here to help. Your gratitude so far is overwhelming.”

   “How are you possibly going to help,” replied Severus. “You have no idea what is going on.”

   “I know,” said Alex darkly. “That you have currently misplaced one Harry Potter, one Hermione Granger and one Ron Weasley because the homing spell you performed backfired.”

   Draco suspected Severus had not been expecting that answer. Sarah, however, dropped her wand hand. “Do you know what happened?” she cried.

   Alex sighed heavily. “Yes,” he said begrudgingly. “Like I said, I’m a Watcher, an immortal human who makes sure business in your country in this particular universe runs smoothly. When Harry crossed over to your universe last year that definitely fell into the category of Not Running Smoothly.”

   “Then why didn’t you stop it?” asked Severus sceptically.

   Alex flung his hands down petulantly. “As if!” he exclaimed. “I can’t just run around other people’s universes. Besides, Harry got home fine, that wasn’t the problem. The problem is he came back with _another_ bit of Voldemort’s soul in him after he defeated him, in addition to the one he already has, and that just couldn’t stay unresolved.”

   “A bit of his soul?” repeated Draco.

   “Erm” said Alex, rubbing his spiky blond hair. “I think the technical magic term is Horcrux.”

   Severus jerked to attention. “We don’t talk about that,” he insisted.

   Alex shrugged. “Well we have to,” he said as Sir Woofsalot scratched behind his ear. “So I pluck him out of the Floo Network after he fell in the fireplace – I had to wait until he was in a state of flux you see – and gave him an amulet to extract the foreign Horcrux. When the spell was performed to send you two home that should have been the end of it.”

   “What went wrong?” demanded Sarah, and Alex grimaced.

   “There weren’t just two Horcruxes by the time the spell was cast,” he said, turning to Draco. “There were three.”

   “Harry managed to get _more_ of Voldemort in him?” asked Draco incredulously, but Severus was the one to answer.

   “No,” he said, lowering his wand. “Not Harry, you.”

   Draco took a moment to look at the others. “Me?” he repeated loudly.

   “You should have tried speaking Parseltongue whilst you had it,” said Alex excitedly. “It sounds mental!”

   “Whilst I had it?” Draco was beginning to feel like a parrot. “Don’t I have it anymore?”

   Alex looked at him and the others as if he’d been caught not doing his homework. “Well,” he said sheepishly. “The amulet did sort of work.” He proceeded to explain how instead of removing just Harry’s rouge Horcrux, it had removed Draco’s too. But the force of this had blasted Harry, Ron and Hermione into three different universes, and the Horcruxes with them.

   “Three _different_ universes?” cried Sarah. “Oh this is so awful!”

   “What happened to the Horcruxes?” asked Severus.

   Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “They went with Ron and Hermione, they got one each.”

   “They have a bit of Voldemort inside them!” said Draco in horror, but Alex held up a finger.

   “No,” he said, “no, no. Once they were extracted the amulet was designed to latch them onto an external object, as is normal with a Horcrux, so they must be within an item close to Hermione and Ron’s doppelgangers.”

   Draco, Severus and Sarah just sort of stared for a moment or two. “So,” said Draco eventually. “What happens now? How do we get everybody home, and what happens to those Horcrux things?”

   “Many excellent questions,” replied Alex with a smile. “All of which are being attended to.”

   “Can’t you just hop over and grab them?” asked Sarah.

   “Hop into a real world?” repeated Alex confused. “Well of course not, I don’t have corporeal form. I can only half put my foot in after someone’s been in flux, like with Harry at Stonehenge, and I certainly can’t go into someone else’s realm.”

   “But you’re here,” said Severus. “You got into the school.”

   “Ah,” said Alex, his face falling. “You haven’t looked out of the window lately, have you?”

   “Yes we-” began Draco as he turned to point at the recently reconstructed window pane, but he stopped with his mouth half open and his hand half raised. Alex was right, they had indeed neglected to glance through the glass in the past few minutes. As he, Sarah and Severus turned and began slowly walking towards the view now before them, Sir Woofsalot whimpered.

   The sky was cracked, like an old pottery vase. There were literal gaps where the atmosphere should have happily been hanging, long black slashes that zig-zagged their way to Earth. And where the grounds of Hogwarts should have extended out as far as the eye could see, the grass and trees only extended a hundred feet or so away from the castle, before they transformed into parched, orange wasteland. Half a dozen strange, very large creatures were sniffing suspiciously at the edge of the lawn. They were like tyrannosaurus-rex with huge armoured antlers and two too many arms scratching behind their heads.

   “What,” breathed Draco. “The Hell...is going on?”

   Alex was standing a little way behind them. “The thing is,” he said softly. “When that spell backfired, and sent the others into three separate universes, your school became a sort of epicentre.” Draco turned around, and felt Sarah’s small hand find his own.

   “Epicentre of what?” she asked, as Draco’s heart thumped.

   “The aftermath,” said Alex, scooping up Sir Woofsalot and perching him in the crook of his arm. Both of them looked strained. “With that much energy expelling outwards, the Multiverse sort of had to snap back, like an elastic band. And when that happened...” He tilted his head and grimaced.

   “Are you saying we are in another reality?” asked Severus. Alex’s face dropped.

   “Oh no,” he said, shaking his head and looking between the three of them by the window. “I’m afraid not. The aftershock wasn’t that powerful, it was only strong enough to pop you a little further out, and as such it shouldn’t be too difficult to get you back.”

   “Get back from where?” asked Draco.

   Alex took a deep breath. “Limbo,” he said. “Hogwarts school, and everyone in it, is in Limbo.”

 

***

 

   The place known as Limbo was not a physical plane in the traditional sense. It was infinite and non-existent all in the same breath. Though it was vast it could not be mapped or travelled across, and although it held many inhabitants not one of them could be considered a living soul.

   Ordinarily that was.

   At the present moment, there were several hundred new residents of the In Between realm, every one of them living and breathing and causing all sorts of trouble. Whereas landscapes in this place normally consisted of wisps of consciousness, ideas and memories loosely constructed around the mind or minds thinking them to create the perception of setting, in the past few minutes that was all falling apart. Mountains were rising, oceans were filling, jungles were bursting into life. Beings who were used to happily musing hours, days, years away in the ether were suddenly thrust into the cold light of day, shivering and blinded by the elements now surrounding them. Sky-scrapers rose, subways tunnelled through the fresh mish-mash of rock solidifying in a pattern that made no geological sense.

   Some structures had always had form; the Embassy of Watchers and the Courtroom of The Elders Jury were two such examples. But these were places belonging to beings who had willingly stepped into the plane of Limbo, had made their home and workplace there. It was the untrained minds that were now pulling the threads of reality, bringing form where there had been none before.

   Harry Potter, however, was not aware of any of this. In fact he wasn’t aware of much at all as he lay on his back and blinked his eyes slowly. There was no ceiling to the room he was in, the walls just sort of extended into darkness. No, not walls, shelves. It seemed like a library as far as he could tell from the stacks of books rising into the black murkiness. There was a smell like wood smoking, burning slowly on a low flame that seemed at odds with what he was looking at, and the lights were down low throwing long shadows across Harry’s vision. He hadn’t been here a moment ago, of that he was certain.

   He sat up carefully and looked around. He was in a circular well, bordered with wooden railings and two little stair cases at opposite ends. The towers of books had their ends pointing into the circular well, and they extended out into the darkness further than Harry could see. The carpet he was sat on was plush and a rich red colour. With him in the well were several book-covered tables surrounded by chairs in the same reddish wood as the railings and book cases, as well as a number of fat green sofas.

   Harry’s instinct had been correct, this was definitely some sort of library, though he had never seen it before in his life. There was a kind of numbness hanging over him, stopping him from processing his thoughts properly. He was aware of this, but oddly it didn’t worry him. Where was he? he wondered slowly. How did he get here?

   Hadn’t he been eating breakfast? he thought as he clambered to his feet and brushed calmly his jeans down. In the Great Hall, with Ron and Hermione. And they’d been arguing, about a book. Harry looked around, blinking through the haze in his brain as he began to realise he had none of his possessions with him. No backpack, no books. He pressed down his pockets and found his wand with relief.

   A form of panic was worming its way through the cloudiness in his conscious. He was in a strange place and he didn’t know how he got there. His scar wasn’t hurting, which was a good sign, but it didn’t really tell him more than Voldemort wasn’t near at that present moment.

   “Harry?” came a voice from behind, and he spun around in surprise. Hermione Granger was standing at the top of the little flight of stairs across the well from him, looking at him with confusion. He was sure his face was wearing the same expression as he quickly took in her appearance.

   Her hair was sleek, straight and cut in a layered fashion around her face. Her jeans were well fitted and on her feet were newly polished boots with a three inch heel. An old looking key was hanging around her neck and as she descended the steps and came closer Harry could see she was even wearing make-up. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her with make-up apart from at the Yule Ball.

   “Hermione?” he asked unsure. “What happened?”

   She peered at him, as if waiting for something. After a moment or two she looked around the library that faded into the darkness and frowned. “I was in the school library,” she said. “With Lisa and Lavender.”

   Harry couldn’t help it, he shook his head. “No, we were in the great Hall,” he said, his heart fluttering in his chest. “We were talking about Potions.”

   Hermione peered at him again. “I highly doubt that,” she told him eventually.

   “Where are we?” asked Harry, the fogginess in his head beginning to relinquish its control and allow enough room for some good healthy fear to blossom. “How did we get here, and why are your clothes different?”

   “Oh no,” said Hermione, her face paling. “Oh no.”

   Harry raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound good,” he told her evenly.

   “Whoa!” cried another voice, a boy, and Harry turned to his left to see the top of someone’s head as they sat up behind the nearest green sofa. “What the...”

   Harry and Hermione exchanged a look, then unanimously began walking either end of the couch. Harry wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not when he rounded the arm rest and saw Ron Weasley sitting on the floor in front of him. “Ron?” he said stupidly. Like Hermione, Ron looked radically different to his normal appearance. He had knee length shorts on and a t-shirt with a swirling, non-descript pattern, the sleeves cut off. Harry hadn’t recognised his signature red hair from the other side of the sofa as it was hidden by a backwards baseball cap.

   “Ron?” repeated Hermione, alarmed. “Ron Weasley?”

   Ron held up his hands. “Hey,” he said with concern. “No, not Weasley. Do I know you guys?”

   Harry blinked. “Is that a joke?”

   Ron stared at him, then over his shoulder at Hermione, then stood up shakily. “I don’t know what you guys are playing at,” he said, backing into the wooden railings. “But this ain’t funny.”

   Harry narrowed his eyes at his best friend, Hermione momentarily forgotten. “What’s wrong with your voice?” he asked, unable to place it. The accent was off somehow.

   “Ron _Weasley?”_ said Hermione again, her voice becoming ever so slightly hysterical.

   “Why do keep saying that?” snapped Harry. “What’s wrong with you both?”

   “Ron Weasley is _dead!”_ yelled Hermione, her voice echoing around the silent mystery library.

   Ron blinked and seemed to think that over. “Who’s Ron Weasley?” he said.

   “No he’s not,” repeated Harry with more fervour. “He’s right here.”

   Hermione balled up her fists. “Ron and his family were murdered by Lord Voldemort several years ago,” she insisted. “I’ve never met him before, only heard about him from someone else.” She looked as if she might cry and took a step towards Harry. “But it wasn’t you, was it? You’re not the one who came to Germany with us?”

   Harry felt speechless. Ron looked down right scared. “Ron” he said patiently, “and the rest of the Weasleys are fine.”

   Ron threw up his hands. “Who are the Weasleys?” he asked with a nervous laugh. A cold, slippery sensation trickled down Harry’s spine.

   “You,” he said confused. “That’s your name.”

   Ron really did laugh this time. “Aw man,” he said, relieved. “You’ve got the wrong guy – phew!” He mocked wiping sweat off his brow. “My name’s Nicholls, you must have made a mistake.” He shoved his hands into his shorts and rocked on his feet.   “So, are there hidden cameras or something – for a prank?”

   “Nicholls?” repeated Harry. “But your mum’s Molly yeah? Dad’s Arthur? Bill, Charlie, Percy, and the rest?”

   Ron looked uncomfortable. “Yeah that’s us,” he said wearily. Harry turned from him to Hermione, then back again.

   “But...why are you saying your name is Nicholls, and what’s with your voice?”

   “Isn’t he normally American then?” asked Hermione, slumping down on to the green sofa and covering her face with her hands.

   “You know he’s not!” cried Harry, realizing that she was right, that was what was different about his accent.

   “Of course I am!” cried Ron at almost the same time. “Have been my whole life.”

   “Oh no,” wailed Hermione, flinging her hands down in to her lap. “I knew something like this was going on, I knew it the minute Draco and Sarah vanished.”

   “Draco Malfoy?” demanded Harry, a steely edge to his voice. Ron just bit his lip.

   “Just to be absolutely clear,” said Hermione, leaning forward on the sofa in a pleading sort of way. “You’re not the Harry Potter who travelled with me to Germany to rescue your sister and destroy Lord Voldemort, or the one that disappeared when that Harry took his place?”

   “Huh?” said Ron.

   The chill Harry had felt run down his spine earlier evolved into a full blown ice bath all over his body. He took a very good look at Hermione, then Ron, then back to Hermione. “Is that some sort of sick joke Hermione?” he breathed out through a clenched jaw.

   She looked upset, and clutched at her key necklace again. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I know this is probably a lot to take in.”

   “I don’t have a _sister!”_ Harry spat out.

   “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, holding up her hands in a peace offering. “But I think I have an idea of what’s going on here, will you let me explain?”

   “Yes,” piped up Ron in his unfamiliar accent. “For the love of God, explain.”

   She took a deep breath, lifted herself from the couch and began pacing the room, key still in hand. “Do you know what Parallel Universes are?”

   “What?” said Harry and Ron at the same time.

   “Um,” she said. “Okay, so it’s a bit farfetched. But, it’s the concept that there are realities that exist side by side one another, but with slight differences. Like, in one universe, someone made one choice, but in another they did something different, so things turned out another way.”

   “So?” asked Harry. “Why are you talking about this?”

   She held her hands out to the two boys. “Because they’re real. I’ve seen it for myself.”

“Oh whatever,” scoffed Ron.

   “That’s stupid,” said Harry. Hermione’s arms fell to her side.

   “Well, I can’t say I blame you, that was my reaction. But they’re real, very real.”

   Ron squinted at her and took a few steps away from the railings. “Are you one of those crazy, Area 51, time-travelling, aliens-are-among-us nut jobs?”

   She looked at him blankly. “Is time-travel possible in your universe?” she asked incredulously.

“No!” he shouted, thumping a fist on a nearby table. “If this is some dweeb idea of a joke, I want out, right now!” He practically spun in a circle, then calmed and came to a halt again. “Where are the doors?” he asked in a quieter voice. “How did we get in here?”

   “I was eating breakfast,” insisted Harry. “With both of you, and then I must of passed out and woke up here.”

   “Dude, I have never seen you before in my life,” said Ron, pointing his finger. Hermione waved her hands.

   “Please!” she cried, and they looked at her. “Harry, that was a different reality, a different version of us two. I was in the school library when I blacked out and Ron,” she extended her hand. “What were you doing?”

   “Playing B-Ball,” he said unsure.

   “POTTER!” Harry jumped out of his skin as someone called his name from within the stacks. The three teenagers in the well shared a look.

   “Hello?” Harry called back in trepidation.

   There was the sound of footsteps stomping, then the familiar face of Draco Malfoy appeared, livid, from out of the darkness.

   “I knew I heard your bloody voice,” he snarled, marching along the wooden railings then down the small set of stairs. “What have you done to me, where are we?”

   “Malfoy,” said Harry resisting the urge to take a step backwards. “Calm down, we don’t know what’s going on.” At least Draco looked like normal he noted with a insignificant sense of relief.

   “You know this joker?” said Ron sceptically.

   “Shut up Weasley,” the blond Slytherin shot back.

   “That’s not my name!” Ron yelled.

   _“Boys!”_ cried Hermione with such conviction, they all shut their mouths. “So,” she said, taking a deep breath and placing her shaking hands together. “Harry, you know everybody here, correct?”

   He shook his head in resignation. “Yes,” he said patiently. “Of course I do.”

“Draco, do you know everybody here?”

   He glared at her, running his eyes up and down her body, then curled his lip. “Are you attempted to be funny Granger?”

   Her mouth fell open.

   “W-what?” she stammered.

   “You,” he said, jabbing his finger under her nose. “Funny? Do Mudbloods have that concept?”

   Hermione closed her eyes and blinked back tears. Harry put his arm around her. No matter how weird she was sounding she was still Hermione. “Shut your mouth Malfoy,” he growled. “Or I’ll shut it for you.”

   “Oooh!” said Malfoy with mock fear, waving his hands about. “Please don’t hurt me Mr Potter.”

   Hermione shook herself under Harry’s arm. “No,” she said, audibly swallowing. “No it’s fine, it actually proves my point.”

   “Which is?” asked Ron with a raised eyebrow.

   Hermione looked at Malfoy through her eyelashes, then set her jaw. “Seeing as Draco knows all our surnames, I’ll take it that he does know us. And, I know him and Harry, and I’ve heard of Ron. And Ron, you’ve never met or heard of any of us, correct?”

   Ron just nodded, his eyes flicked from one person to the next.

   “Draco, what is the last thing you remember before you blacked out?”

   He blinked and folded his arms. “How did you know I blacked out?”

   “Because we all did,” she said earnestly.

   “He was in the Great Hall,” supplied Harry. “Being a moron as usual.”

   Malfoy stuck his chin out. _“Actually,”_ he said petulantly. “I was in the Slytherin common room, playing chess with Pansy.” He looked smug. “I was winning.”

   Harry threw up his hands in defeat. “Okay,” he said. “So maybe I blacked out first, and the rest of you did later. I was having breakfast.”

   “Well we’d just had Sunday lunch,” said Draco in a superior tone. Harry though, frowned.

   “Sunday?” he repeated.

   “It’s Saturday,” said Ron slowly.

   Hermione actually broke into a smile, but Harry was just becoming irritated. “Have I been out a whole day?” he demanded, though he wasn’t sure who he expected an answer from.

   “No,” said Hermione, excitedly. “No, but I think Draco might have lost a whole week though.”

   “Why are you calling him Draco and not Malfoy?” asked Harry. That was irritating him too.

   “Oh shut it, both of you” Malfoy sneered and began looking around the room. “Where’s the door, how did you get in?”

   “Listen to me,” said Hermione eagerly. “I think I do know what might be happening, or at least part of it.” She held her hands up and her smile got bigger. “I think we are all from four different Parallel Universes.”

   The three boys stared at her. “Of course,” said Harry eventually, unable to keep the scorn out of his voice. “Have you lost your mind?”

   “This is stupid,” agreed Ron.

   “I am leaving this instant,” Malfoy informed them. “All your parents will be hearing from my father about this debacle. Except for you Potter,” he added with a delightful jeer. “Your parents are dead.”

   Harry snapped. He was confused, in a strange place and a taunt about his parents on top of Sirius’ death only weeks ago all resulted in the very sudden decision to lunge at Malfoy and punch him in the face.

   _“No!”_ screamed Hermione, but they were toppling over the green sofa before she or the American Ron could do anything about it.

   “Potter get _off_ me!” yelled Malfoy, shoving Harry in the chest, but Harry wasn’t finished with him and took another swing. Malfoy blocked him and took a shot of his own, knocking Harry on the jaw and sending his glasses flying.

   _“ENOUGH!”_

   The voice didn’t so much shout, as reverberate through Harry’s whole body, and he and Malfoy fell apart from each other. He snatched up his glasses and put them on in time to see Hermione take a concerned step, not towards him, but Malfoy. She stopped herself though, and clutched her hands in from of her chest and bit her lip.

   “Who was that?” asked Ron, looking around the room. They didn’t have to wait long to find out.

   There was a sound of wheels, and after moment a ladder came whooshing out of the darkness along one of the corridors created by the book cases. It teetered as it reached the edge and came to a halt. About ten feet up, which was probably two thirds of the length of the ladder, stood a little grey haired man in a waist coat and ink covered fingers, gripping onto the ladder sides resolutely. He waited for the wheels to steady themselves, then stormed down the steps until he reached the floor. Harry guessed he was only about five foot but he managed to hold the unwavering attention of the room none the less.

   He marched over to a small pile of books stacked by the railings, stomped up on them and smacked his hands onto the wood, making the four teenagers jump. Having exerted this energy the little man seemed to calm somewhat. He pressed his palms together and placed his index fingers gently against his lips. He took a deep breath in through his nose.

   “There is to be _no_ shouting in the library,” he said in a soft voice, much lower than his stature might have suggested it would be. “Or fighting, or littering.” Harry, like the others, was stunned into silence. The man smiled. “Much better,” he said, jumping off the stack of books and walking round to the nearest staircase. Four heads turned and followed him until he stood before them.

   “Who are you?” Harry asked wearily. “Do you know where we are?”

   “Or how we got here?” chipped in Hermione.

     The little man scoffed as he descended and walked over to a nearby table. As he started talking he tidied books and papers that had been left scattered over the surface area. “Why ask me, it’s of your doing,” he said scornfully.

   “Me?” asked Harry.

   “All of you,” the man snapped pompously. “Everything was ticking along fine until you all showed up at once, and well, now here we all are.”

   “So I was right,” said Hermione hesitantly. “We’re all from different Parallel Universes.”

   The little man looked them each up and down in turn, then tugged at his waist coat.

   “Yes, that is correct.”

   Ron made a scornful whistling noise behind his teeth. “Whatever.”

   The man looked at him, then Harry and Malfoy. “Your friends do not believe you?” he asked practically.

   “We’re not friends,” Malfoy jumped in.

   Hermione folded her arms. “It’s a lot to take in.” The man shrugged and carried on with his tidying.

   “Well, you’d think you’d make this place a little less of a mess,” he muttered to himself.

   “We don’t even know where this is,” Harry pointed out indignantly. “Funnily enough my first thought when I woke up was not to spruce.”

   “Who are you,” asked Hermione over the top of him. “How do you know what’s happening? Are we in another reality, different to our own ones?”

   The man squinted at her, then dropped the pile of books he’d accumulated at the base of the steps. “That’s a lot of questions,” he commented, then continued with his tidying.

   “Please,” she begged. Harry frowned at her. He’d never known Hermione to be so meek, it was unsettling. The man sighed.

   “I have many names,” he said. “But I guess given the circumstances I suppose you could call me Librarian. I’m sure in some language somewhere that was a translation once.”

   “Okay,” said Hermione relieved. “Librarian, wonderful. So, what do you know?”

   “A lot,” he said with a touch of condescension.

   Harry wasn’t feeling very patient. “She means about us, this place,” he said. “Where are we, how did we get here?”

   “You didn’t technically ‘get’ anywhere,” mused the Librarian. “But I know what you mean, and I’ll do my best to explain in a way you might understand.” He regarded the four of them. “It might take some time.”

   Harry opened his mouth to counter the insult, but the Librarian carried on before he could.

   “You are indeed from four different universes, realities that run alongside each other. There is no point in denying it, Miss Granger is telling the truth and the quicker you except that the quicker we can move on.”

   “That’s ridiculous,” scoffed Malfoy. “Why do you expect me to believe that.”

   “You go to school where you practice magic, and yet the concept of a Parallel Universe seems impossible to you.” The Librarian tutted disapprovingly.

   Ron, however, laughed aloud. “Now there’s magic? The Sci-Fi was bad enough, but seriously?”

   Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that, but the Librarian squinted at Ron, looking him up and down. “You don’t know you’re a wizard do you? Curious, that’s not normally a destiny we’d find you in.”

   Ron tugged at the peak of his baseball cap at the back of his head. “Dude none of what you just said made any sense.”

   “He doesn’t know he’s a wizard?” asked Hermione concerned.

   “I’m not a wizard!” exclaimed Ron impatiently.

   The Librarian dropped another pile of books onto the ones he’d already accumulated at the bottom of the steps. “Denial is such an ugly thing.”

   “Haven’t you ever done things, crazy weird things you couldn’t explain?” asked Hermione eagerly. Harry was watching the exchange with the same sort of numbness he’d woken up with. What they were saying couldn’t possibly be _true_ could it?

   Ron eyed up Hermione suspiciously. “No,” he said in a voice that clearly meant yes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

   Hermione reached into the back pocket of her jeans and held out her wand to him. “Here,” she said, her checks flushed and her voice breathless. “Try it, I promise you you’ll want to see this.”

   Ron stared at the stick of wood, grimaced then snatched it off of her. “Abracadabra,” he cried unenthusiastically, then shrugged. “See, nothing, you’re all insane.”

   “Try a proper spell,” Harry heard his own voice saying, removing his own wand from his own jeans.

   “What would a proper spell be?” asked Ron scathingly, his American accent ringing in Harry’s ears. Hermione was right, he suddenly realised. This wasn’t Ron at all.

   _“Lumos,”_ he said dispassionately, and the tip of his wand lit up. Ron looked between him and Hermione, Malfoy was examining his nails and trying his best to look uninterested.

   “It’s a flashlight,” said Ron, but he didn’t sound wholly convinced.

“ _Nox,”_ said Harry, extinguishing the light. “Okay, you try a different one. Look at that book at the top of the pile, and say _‘Accio book’._ See what happens.” He hadn’t realised, but whilst he’d been speaking Hermione had moved to his side. She beamed at him, her whole body tense in anticipation.

   Ron rolled his eyes. _“Accio book,”_ he said, then dropped to the floor in shock as the book flew off of the pile towards him. Harry stepped forward and snatched it out of the air.

   “You really didn’t know that was going to happen,” he said, bewildered.

   “Are we done with your little experiments yet?” enquired the Librarian, not raising his eyes from the papers he was shuffling.

   “What the Hell!” screeched Ron from the floor, peering out from under his hands.

   “You’re a wizard,” said Hermione proudly to him, then leant over to Harry. “I know it wasn’t technically you,” she whispered. “But another you gave me the same shock last year. Best day of my life.”

   “That,” said the Librarian. “Would have been the Harry Potter from Mr Malfoy’s world over there. He ventured into Miss Granger’s universe and created all manner of trouble.”

   “You’re the Draco from Harry’s universe?” asked Hermione, turning back to address Malfoy who was perched on one of the tables. He looked uncomfortable.

   “I haven’t got a clue what any of you are talking about.”

   “Yes,” said the Librarian tiredly. “That’s him, quite a change isn’t it?”

   She regarded him for a moment, then turned to Harry. “Harry seems like the boy I met last year though,” she said, peering at his scar. “He’s not like my Harry.” Harry was starting to lose track of how many Harrys they were talking about. Three?

   The Librarian had finally stopped tidying and was giving Hermione his full attention. “Correct again,” he said, hooking his thumbs into the little pockets on his waistcoat. “This Harry shared an almost identical path to the one you met. He obviously did not throw himself into your universe though, and whereas your Harry returned home and cleared his godfather’s name, this young man...”

   His voice trailed off as Harry stared at him. “My godfather is dead,” he said as his throat constricted.

   The Librarian managed a small smile. “Not in every universe,” he said almost kindly.

   Harry felt his knees go from underneath him, and he bumped onto the arm of the green couch. It was only a few months ago he’d seen Sirius tumble beyond the veil at the Ministry of Magic, forever lost to him because he was too stubborn to listen to Snape, or anybody else. “Your Sirius is dead?” said Hermione, her voice full of sympathy.

   “We could sit here all day,” said the Librarian. “And discuss how your realities differ. But that’s not important, not really, because you are not the ones you can do anything about it.”

   “Then who are?” asked Hermione. Harry’s mind was concentrating on being tormented by the idea that Sirius could still be alive.

   The Librarian extended his hand and swept it in front of the four students. “Your counterparts who have taken your places in the corporeal realms.”

   Even Hermione didn’t have an immediate response to that. “Our...counterparts?” she said eventually.

   “Yes, your doppelgangers as they say in German.” He nodded at Malfoy. “Draco over there has been here almost a week as you’d judge it, but the place didn’t have physical form then, so he wasn’t aware. But when the Draco from your world,” he nodded at Hermione. “And Sarah Potter tried to get back home, the spell...” he pulled a deeply disdainful face. “Did not work, and subsequently the Harry, Hermione and Ronald of that reality were propelled into three different ones, forcing you from your bodies and your consciousnesses created this place and dragged me along with it.”

   Hermione stared at the little man, then around at the books. Harry couldn’t help but do the same. “So, we’re not real anymore?” said Hermione in a small voice

   “Oh you’re real,” said the Librarian. “You just no longer have physical form. You’ve been evicted, into Limbo.”

   Hermione covered her mouth and looked at Harry. “We never knew,” she said slowly. “Where the Harry of my world went, when that the real Harry took his place.”

   The Librarian grinned and thumped the table beside him. “Here,” he said proudly. “Although, like I said, it wouldn’t have had physical form, so he would have just drifted along in the ether until that Harry returned to his proper body. Mr Malfoy has been doing the same thing, but with four of you here all together, it forced Limbo to take action and become corporeal. Fascinating wouldn’t you agree?”

   “I think,” said Ron, who was still sitting on the floor, his head between his knees. “I’d use a different word.”

   Hermione chewed her lip for a while. “So,” she said after a time. “Limbo doesn’t usual have form like this?”

   The Librarian pulled a face. “Not for Drifters,” he agreed. “They’re unaware that they’re here. But for those of us that were invited to reside here on a permanent bases, we know how to create a world around us. Homes and so forth.”

   “What are Drifters?” asked Harry. He noticed that Malfoy still had barely said a word during the exchange, but he was now hanging on every word they were saying.

   “People,” said the Librarian. “Beings who do not die, but are not part of their world anymore. It’s an unusual occurrence, but when you consider the infinite amount of universes, there are quite a lot of them hanging around here, like pollution in a large city.”

   Hermione look appalled. “So, they don’t go to Heaven?”

   A smile tweaked at the corner of the Librarian’s mouth. “If that’s how you’d like to think of it. Ah!” He sat up straight against the table he’d been propping himself against. “What perfect timing. _Bonjour Marie.”_

   He looked up to a point behind the four of them, and Harry and the others turned to see at who he was talking to. A little girl of no more than four years was crouching behind the railings, her hands on the beams, her face pressed up in between them. At the mention of her name she jumped up with a gasp and clasped her hands over her mouth. She was wearing an emerald green dress with cream polka dots and a big cream ribbon around her waist. She had a headband of the same material in her bob of dark brown hair, and her fringe was trimmed just above her eyebrows.

   _“Je suis d_ _é_ _sole, Monsieur Biblioth_ _é_ _caire!”_ she cried, like a daughter would to her father. She looked around the room with wide, disbelieving eyes, before casting her gaze down to her small hands. She flexed them in front of her face, then looked back at the little man and the crowd before him.

_“Esc’que je peut avoir une glace, s’il vous pla_ _î_ _t?”_ she asked shyly. The Librarian chuckled.

   “Of course,” he replied, and held out his hand, indicating an area to the left. “Help yourself.”

   She broke into a beaming smile and ran around the walkway. She stopped and grabbed a metal ring on the floor and heaved open a trap door. She reached her arm all the way inside, and just when Harry thought she would surely fall in she leant out again, an orange ice lolly proudly in her grasp. She let the door fall down again and sat on the floor, ignoring all the rest and began eating her prize.

   “Marie is from the same reality as Mr Malfoy here,” the grey haired man explained. “Those lost souls from you own realms will undoubtedly be the first to manifest as you will create a stronger platform for them to reach out to. But given time, those from other realities, far and wide, will begin to appear and then we shall have some real trouble on our hands.”

   “What happened to her?” asked Hermione sadly.

   The man shrugged and pulled out a pocket watch from his waistcoat, he checked the time as he answered her then put it back in his waistcoat pocket. “About six weeks ago her mother was experimenting with some spell or other, but it went wrong and accidentally pushed the little girl out of that dimension. She’s not _dead_ you see,” he said, leaning on his knees. “But she is no longer _there_ either. She sort of latchedonto me as best she could as soon as she got here,” said the Librarian warmly. “But of course this is the first time I have seen her.”

   Hermione watched the girl, Marie, as she got orange all over her face. “So there are other places in Limbo, other than this one?”

   “Oh yes,” agreed the Librarian, nodding.

   “Can we get there?”

   “You?” he asked, then considered. “Perhaps, but it would be very difficult. Other people can dream of you when they sleep, but can you _make_ them do so? That would require skill indeed.”

   “But you can,” Hermione clarified.

   The Librarian shrugged. “That’s different, I belong here.”

   Harry waved his hand though. “Who cares about going anywhere in Limbo,” he said. “How do we get home, how does everybody get back into their own bodies?”

   “I’m afraid,” said the Librarian, pushing himself off of the table and walking slowly back up the stairs. “You’ll just have to wait.”

   “For what?” asked Ron, his face far paler than normal under his freckles.

   The Librarian ruffled Marie’s hair as she licked her lolly stick clean, and pulled up the trap door. “For your counterparts to get themselves home. There’s nothing you four can do in the real world, you don’t technically exist anymore. Any magic performed will only have relevance here, not in any of your universes. You’ll just have to tough it out until your doppelgangers get their acts together.” He reached into the trapdoor.

   “But what if they don’t get their acts together,” asked Hermione, horrified.

   The Librarian came back out again with four different coloured lollies. “Then you’ll just be stuck here forever,” he said. “Ice cream anybody?”

   Nobody spoke for at least a full minute.

   Harry was the first to find his voice, lurking somewhere at the bottom of his shoes.

   _“What?”_ was all he found though.


	3. Hide and Seek

Chapter Two -

   Hide And Seek

 

Where are we? What the hell is going on?

The dust has only just begun to fall

Crop circles in the carpet, sinking, feeling

Spin me round again and rub my eyes

This can't be happening

When busy streets a mess with people

Would stop to hold their heads heavy

 

Hide and seek

 

Imogen Heap

 

   “Limbo?” said Sarah Potter to Alex the Watcher accusingly. “We can’t be in Limbo.”

   He looked surprised. “Can’t you?” he asked genuinely. He was like no man Sarah had ever seen before, not in real life at any rate. His face was so perfectly put together it was like something out of a magazine, she half expected him to strike a pose and check his watch, or point to the sky. But his clothes looked like he’d raided the BBC costume department, picking decades at random, then not taken a single item off for at least thirty years. And he switched from sombre to ridiculous at the flick of a switch. Sarah couldn’t decide if she found the finished result incredibly irritating or devastatingly attractive.

   She chose to go with irritating.

   “We didn’t move anywhere,” she said stubbornly as Draco and Professor Snape turned away from the window and the distressing sight it held, coming to stand by her side. “You pass out when you jump realities.”

   “True,” said Alex with a nod, shifting the little white puppy cradled on his arm. “But if you were paying attention I said the _whole school_ has moved into Limbo, you didn’t change bodies or swap realities, you’ve just...shifted out of existence.” He seemed to think this whole explanation was very helpful and would sooth her nerves.

   “We don’t _exist_ anymore!” she yelped. Draco put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

   “You’re not very good with explanations are you,” he said to Alex.

   Snape seemed to agree. “You need to stop dancing around the subject and tell us plainly what is happening,” he said in a smooth, cold voice.

   Alex propped Sir Woofsalot up on his chest, and the puppy began chewing on the collar of his tailcoat. “Being mean won’t get you anywhere Severus,” he said crossly. “I am doing my best you know. I’ve had a pretty rotten day to put it mildly, and then I realise that several hundred of my wards have toppled from their nice safe home world into this place which doesn’t even normally have proper form, so now I have to sort that out too.” His voice had grown darker during his speech. “And your impending doom isn’t even the worst thing that’s happened to me, or the Multiverse today. So it would be nice if we could all use our indoor voices, and appreciate that everyone is on the same team, okay?

   Sarah ran the ball of her tongue stud across the back of her teeth, making it clatter quietly. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s all just a bit crazy. We were so worked up about getting home, leaving our friends here.” She looked up at Draco who rubbed her shoulder. “We – I – was a little worried we might get lost in between the two universes, and not only did that happen, but Harry and the others are lost in different realties too.”

   Alex smiled at her. “It’s alright,” he said kindly. “No one’s lost, not really. I’ll get you all back safe.”

   Sarah bit down on the tongue bar, then pulled it back into her mouth. “What was the worst thing that happened today?” she said. “If you don’t mind me asking. I just want to work out how scared I should be.” From the corner of her eye she saw the dinosaur type creatures poking at the grass that bordered their barren wasteland and cracked skyline. So this was Limbo huh? She’s hadn’t imagined it looking so much like a Dali painting.

   Alex forced a smile onto his face but his eyes were sad. “I lost a friend,” he said, handing Sarah Sir Woofsalot suddenly. “A good friend I’ve known for a very long time. She was brave and she was helping people right until the end, but now she’s gone and I’m not sure what to do about it.” He brushed his hands together and stared out the window. “Drink stale coffee maybe.”

   Sarah shifted the squirming puppy in her arms. He seemed desperate to lick her face, or bite her nose, or perhaps just eat her earrings. “I’m sorry,” she said, patting the dog on the head. He was so small and fragile she worried she might hurt him.

   Alex jumped up and shook all his limbs out. “Thanks,” he said with a happier smile, then saluted at Professor Snape. “Plain explanation, right,” he said, and began pacing around the room with his hands behind his back. “Well, when your spell went wrong and you lot all came here, and Harry, Ron and Hermione went where they went, there was another side effect.”

   “You forgot the Horcruxes,” said Draco tightly.

   “Well I was getting to that,” said Alex in mock exasperation. “So, the bit of the two Voldemorts’ in you and Harry were ripped out and sent into two different dimensions with Ron and Hermione-”

   “Are they okay?” Sarah interrupted.

   Alex scratched his highlighted hair, but it didn’t move much there was so much wax in it. “The Horcruxes?”

   “No,” said Sarah patiently, and let a squirming Sir Woofsalot down to the ground where he began sniffing around eagerly. “Harry, Ron and Hermione. You said they went to three different realities, but are they okay, how different are the realities?”

   Alex pulled a face. “We’re still working on that,” he said. “I only have so many pigeons.” Sarah raised her eyebrows at Draco but he just shrugged. “We do know that Hermione ended up back in your world, taking her counterpart’s place.”

   Draco visibly paled. “Is she okay?” he croaked. “My Hermione?”

   Alex squinted at him. “The one from your world?” he clarified.

   “Yes!” said Draco. “What’s happened to her! What happens to people when they get kicked out of their bodies?” He looked down at himself. “And where’s this Draco for that matter, do you know?”

   “Well,” said Alex, extending his arms out. “They’re here, in Limbo. But-” he added hastily as Draco open his mouth. “We can’t go there. Limbo’s not somewhere you just walk around. They’re both safe and with a colleague of mine. Now stop interrupting, I haven’t got to the really bad part yet.”

   “You haven’t?” asked Snape heavily.

   As if in response Sir Woofsalot woofed and the Potions Master scowled at him. “So,” said Alex. “Those Horcruxes were a part of those two Voldemorts, the one from your world and the one from Harry, Ron and Hermione’s. What was left of those Voldemorts was sort of floating about, not dead but anchored to those universes because of the other Horcruxes he’d created.”

   “Others?” asked Sarah, interested, but Alex waved her down.

   “Believe it or not,” he said. “That’s not important. What is important is that when the Horcruxes left this reality and crossed over Limbo, both their respective Voldemorts were able to hitch a ride and now they’re here. In Limbo.”

   Sarah looked at Draco and Snape, who both looked perturbed. “So, neither Voldemort was really dead,” Draco began. “And now they’re stuck in Limbo, they can’t do anything bad now, we’re free of them,” he finished in an attempt at reassurance.

   “Right, right, wrong, wrong,” said Alex sadly. “Back in your realities Old Voldy was just a spirit, not even really a ghost. But now, here, it’s like they’ve both been restored to full strength, both in body and mind. They’re just as powerful and just as maniacal as before. They’ve already decimated the Jury of Elders, our governing body, and killed a lot of people.”

   “You can die in Limbo?” asked Sarah, a shiver running through her. “Aren’t you already dead?”

   Alex inhaled. “That’s a little tricky, I’ll go over that later. I’m certain there’ll be a nice quiet moment at some point.” His sarcasm suggested otherwise, but Sarah let it lie.

   “So, our two Voldemorts want to destroy Limbo?” she asked instead.

Alex looked down at his puppy winding around his pirate boots. “I’d guess that’s the start, but even if they restricted their activities to Limbo, if they got rid of all us Watchers, our universes would be left helpless. There would be no one to orchestrate the formation of the new realities as they’re created, the worlds would fall into chaos. Obviously this is all theoretical, it’s never happened before, but the realms could start bleeding into one another, the natural order of things would get all messed up, and eventually...” he sighed, like this had been a very long day at the office and it wasn’t going to end any time soon. “Fall apart. We’re looking at the destruction of the entire Multiverse.”

   Sarah wished she hadn’t asked.

   Draco swore. “How can this be happening?” he asked no one in particular, running his hands through his white blond hair.

   “Can it be stopped?” demanded Snape. “The entirety of existence can’t possibly be brought down by two rouge wizards?”

   Alex actually smiled. “That’s the can-do attitude I’ve been looking for Sevy!” he said, pleased. “Unfortunately, yes, it is actually horribly easy to destroy Limbo if you have the right mindset. It’s just no one in the history of the Multiverse has ever tried, because we have a strict No-Lunatic entry policy. But yes! It does look like, in theory, there’s two ways to stop them both. And we’re looking at one of them right now.” He gave two thumbs up to Draco.

   Sarah stared at the Watcher, then turned to Draco. “Draco?” she said, concern creeping into her guts. “What does he have to do with it?”

   Alex took a step forward and grabbed Draco’s right wrist, turning it over to reveal the scar he’d recently acquired. “Draco’s special,” he said in little more than a mutter, his eyes locked with Draco’s. “He and Harry both defeated those Voldemorts in different worlds, their life-force is tied by the Horcruxes, by their scars. But we think this tie also means the two boys would be the only ones powerful enough to stand against the two Dark Lords and save the Multiverse.”

   “Oh,” said Draco, not even blinking as Alex’s blue eyes held his gaze. “That sounds easy.”

   Alex smiled and clapped his shoulder. “See,” he said. “Can-do attitude, it goes a long way. Now don’t worry, myself and my posse of chums are going to help you, but first thing’s first. We need to get this school back in the right reality, without losing a single student, and also send out those letters you’re all rather fond of to our three lost friends and get them back where they belong too.”

   “I’m sorry,” said Sarah. “But can we go back to the part where Draco has to – what – pick a fight with the Voldemort he accidently destroyed?”

   “Yeah,” said Draco, his voice dead and cold. “It’s not like my mum can die again to save me.”

   Sarah bit her lip and grabbed onto his shaking hand. Alex looked sad. “Draco,” he said softly. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through-”

   “Twice,” Draco interrupted. “I watched him kill her twice.”

   Alex flicked his tailcoat back and placed his hands on his hips. “I know,” he said pragmatically. “And that was awful, make no mistake. But that is not what I am saying. I am saying that the reason the two Voldemorts are here is because you boys destroyed them in your wrong realities, and when the foreign Horcruxes were taken from you and crossed Limbo, the energy used was sufficient to rip the bodiless Voldemorts along with them, and now they are here. Because of the link with you and Harry. Just by standing up to your respective Voldemorts, you will have a stronger connection with anyone else in the entire Multiverse, a power over them no one else can claim. And that will be the edge you need to finally destroy them forever.”

   Draco stared at Alex a while, breathing in and out of his nose. Sarah squeezed his hand tighter, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Okay,” he said finally.

   “Draco you can’t,” said Snape immediately.

   “I don’t have a choice, do I?” shot back Draco. “Look, if I can finally get rid of this monster, for good, then I have to try.”

   Sarah felt sick. “But...” she said, her voice quivering. “You don’t know much magic, not really.”

   “I’ve got a big, shiny sword a friend of mine can lend him,” said Alex with a twitch of a smile.

   Draco, surprisingly, looked reassured. Then Sarah remembered him in the caves in Germany. “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” he said.

   “Fine,” said Sarah, more confident than she felt. “In that case I’m staying too, I can help.”

   “No,” said Draco, concern lacing his tone. “No you need to get home, to your family.”

   She felt the anger rise, but she bit it down and leant into him. “You _are_ my family,” she hissed.

   “And I promise to return him safely to you,” said Alex, taking her hand and kneeling on one knee in front of her . “Believe me, I don’t want to do this to him, but it’s the best chance we – everybody – has. We’ll look after him, I swear.”

   “I’ll be okay,” said Draco nodding. “I want to know you’re safe at home, and I’ll come back to you as soon as possible.”

   Sarah ran her tongue stud against the roof of her mouth. “I don’t want to abandon you,” she said in a minute voice.

   “You’re not,” said Draco sadly. “Please, please do this for me. I’d never live with myself if something happened to you.”

   She closed her eyes, and sighed. She knew when she was beat.

   “Okay,” she breathed out.  

Alex grabbed her into a hug. “Excellent, good girl.” He let go and jumped to his feet again. “Okay, lots to do, lots to do. We need to write those letters, then Severus can send them when he’s back in his correct universe. I can catch Harry when he makes the jump home, it’ll be a nasty shock but I need him here with Draco to fight the good fight.”

   “We should head to Dumbledore immediately,” said Snape, heading for the door. “We need to coordinate the efforts of the staff, and if necessary the student body too.”

   He yanked the door to the classroom open, but for the second time that day, it did not lead to the corridor it should have. Sarah stopped in her tracks and gasped.

   When Alex had entered, it had looked like a hallway of an old, cosy house, with wooden beams and plush carpets. She reasoned now that had been somewhere else in Limbo that Alex had conjured up. But what was before them was neither corridor or entrance hall. It was the Hogwarts kitchens.

   Alex stopped too and Draco almost bumped into him. “That,” said the Watcher with a pointed finger. “Isn’t normally there, is it?”

   “No,” snapped Snape, pushing forward to stick his head through into the large, steamy room. Sarah, desperate to know what could possibly be happening now on top of everything else followed suite, leaning into the kitchen with her heart banging against her ribcage.

   Several house elves were huddled together in the corner in shock, the Hogwarts logo stamped on their tea towel uniforms. And across from them stood two men who Sarah had never seen before at the school, and was sure there was a good reason for that.

   There were both of the same build; slim, medium height, with black slacks on, braces and white shirts rolled up to their elbows. On their heads were black trilby hats, with grey borders and white tickets stuck in between at an angle. In their hands were cigarettes, half finished, the smoke billowing around their figures like heavy fog. They both looked up and until that moment Sarah had taken them to be human. But as soon as their eyes met, she could see they were entirely black, no whites at all or discernible pupil, just shiny glass spheres that sent a chill all threw her. The one on the left smiled, as if he was curious, and together the two beings exhaled their cigarettes.

   As the smoke left their mouths, Sarah realised with a jolt that their outlines had not been as solid as she had automatically assumed. Before they had been partially hidden by the steam from all the pans on the hobs, but the cigarette smoke was now clamouring around them, eagerly swirling about their bodies, making their form clear, their outlines sharp. And now they were both smiling.

   “What are you doing?” Alex screamed at the trembling house elves. “Get out of here!”

   The house elves, of which there were about half a dozen, blinked in surprise, as if that had never occurred to them, and vanished in a chorus of loud cracks.   Alex turned and shoved Sarah and the others backwards

   “Move!” he cried, though he didn’t really need to, and slammed the door firmly shut behind him. He was breathing heavily and looked genuinely scared. “Oh dear,” he said between breaths. “Oh dear. Now, yes now I think we are in trouble.”

   Sarah stared at him.

   _“Now?”_ she said.

 

***

 

   Sarah Potter and Draco Malfoy were most definitely not in the Gryffindor common room it seemed from the looks on Harry and Parvati’s faces. Hermione let go of her last little flutter of hope, and sagged against the wall by the portrait of the Fat Lady. It was strange that so much of this world was like her own, like the portrait, and other parts, she thought glancing at Harry’s scowling face, were so different.

   “Now, did you check the bathrooms?” asked Terry pleasantly. “I’m sure hopping dimensions would call for a nice long shower.”

   “We checked everywhere,” snapped Parvati as she clambered out of the entrance to the common room and slammed the painting closed, causing the Fat Lady to shriek. “We’re not idiots.”

   Hermione couldn’t help but feel the smallest bit smug at their failure. She had been told she was not welcome in the Gryffindor common room as soon as they had arrived, and been instructed by the pair to remain outside. Terry, rather unfairly, had been invited in but he’d claimed it would be unethical seeing as he was a Ravenclaw. So the two of them had remained outside, which Hermione had been fuming about, doubting they would look in half the places she had planned to, but it wasn’t long before Terry had started asking questions. About everything. What exactly had happened last November, and then this week, how their worlds were different, all the theories on inter-dimensional travel and who had received the highest OWL marks in her world. By the time Parvati and Harry had climbed back through the portrait hole, Terry was pretty much up to date on all the Alternate Reality shenanigans, if not slightly miffed that Hermione had beaten him to the top of the class.

   Hermione flicked a strand of hair back irritably; it kept falling in her face and she couldn’t imagine how the other Hermione put up with it. Whilst she’d been answering Terry’s questions she’d caught her reflection in a suit of armour and been even more shocked than she had been at the tight jeans an impractical boots. Her hair was poker straight, and cut into layers around her hair and shoulders, and there was definitely make-up on her face – although she had already rubbed eye shadow on her fingers earlier she hadn’t assumed that would have meant blusher, mascara and foundation as well.   She felt like a right floozy, and would have rubbed the whole lot off if she hadn’t feared the result would make her resemble a clown.

   “It was a long shot anyway,” she said to Parvati, who seemed to have perfected a remarkable scowl in this reality. “The spell obviously went wrong, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. They’re probably still standing in the Old History of Magic classroom with my Harry and Ron.”

   “Who’s Ron?” snapped Parvati.

   Harry sighed, his jaw clenched and his eyes downcast. “A boy who died,” he said simply. “Okay, so they’re not back, I still want to tell my parents what we know.”

   Terry patted him on the shoulder. “Good thinking mate,” he said. “They’ll want to know everything, and I bet they’ll have some ideas on what to do. Why don’t you and Parv do that, and Herm and I can start rustling up some ingredients for the spells she been telling me about.”

   He was referring to the spells to send an item back to Draco and Sarah so they could activate it and get home, as well as the one that would try and get Hermione back where she belonged, the trickier of the two spells by far. Hermione knew this was a sensible plan, and figured she and Terry would be better suited to the research as the calmest of the four students (and possibly cleverest if Terry was being truthful about his OWLs). But an almost fearful urge took over her, and her mouth was open before Terry had even finished speaking.

   She wanted to meet Harry’s parents. She knew it was selfish, but she wanted to see who her friend should have grown up with, and maybe work out why _this_ Harry had gone so wrong even though he hadn’t been made an orphan. Sarah was a good girl, they must be reasonable parents. Her curiosity was overwhelming.

   But Harry, or Potter as she was beginning to think of him, beat her to it. “No,” he said to Terry. “She’s coming with us, she’s proof. She’ll be able to explain to Sirius and my mother and things will all move a lot faster.   You can go play around with some spells if you want, this isn’t really your problem.”

   Hermione thought that was rude, but Terry just raised an eyebrow then began sauntering down the corridor. Harry crossed his arms and followed, leaving Hermione to fall into an uncomfortable step with Parvati. “Unfortunately it pretty much is my problem now,” said Terry. “As this is by far the most interesting thing that has ever happened at this school and I’m not going to bugger off back to my Charms homework now.”

   “It’s not a _game,”_ growled Parvati. “This isn’t happening for your amusement.”

   Terry waved a hand. “Chill the Hell out,” he said dismissively. “I know that. But I also can’t research the spells to get people in the right universes because Herm knows it all, not me. So we’ll just have to share her.” He turned and winked at Hermione, who looked at the three of them awkwardly.

   “I think Harry’s right,” she said, pulling at her silky hair. “If we talk to his parents, then we can decide what’s best to do. I’m happy to have a go at either spell, or both, but it might be good to get Dumbledore or Snape to help.”

   “Dumbledore’s no good,” said Harry coldly. “He can barely do any magic now. And Snape’s doing stuff with the Order or whatever. We can ask McGonagall if my parents want us to.” He stopped and pushed open a door to one of the Muggle Studies classrooms. “This will do.”

   The four of them filed in and Harry shut the door behind them. The room looked pretty similar to the one Hermione was used to; large, and covered with an immeasurable amount of tat Wizards found interesting about Muggles. There were shelves stocked with various models of telephones, radios, walkie-talkies and a T.V. with a wonky aerial perched on top. A battered looking computer was stationed in the corner, with several plant pots arranged around it, as well as a watering can with clear instructions written on the side. By the way the computer monitor was dripping though, Hermione guessed someone hadn’t read the instructions clear enough.

   The walls were covered with posters of trains and planes and cars, as well as recipes for Victoria Sponge and spaghetti bolognese. A kite hung from the ceiling, along with a long florescent light from a fish and chip shop, and a model of the solar system. There was a large basket of sports equipment in the corner, filled to the brim with footballs, cricket bats and golf clubs. And everywhere you looked there were manuals, explaining how Muggles did the simplest of tasks without magic.

   Harry marched up to the fireplace and pulled out a pouch from his back pocket, before checking his watch. Parvati stepped beside him and rubbed his shoulders in an oddly tender gesture. Hermione remembered with a twist how Draco and Sarah had explained that the two were dating but it still looked strange and alien to her.

   “I’m sure someone will be home,” said Parvati quietly. “Even if it is a bit earlier than usual.”

   Harry sighed, then turned to look at Hermione. “I’m not even sure what I’m going to tell them,” he said bitterly, turning back to Parvati. “‘Hey, I think we’ve found Sarah, but she’s in the wrong parallel universe’ – I’ll probably just stress them out even more.”

   “Just stick your head in Ziggy,” said Terry, hopping up to sit on a work station beside a fish tank filled with motorised toys. “Something’s better than nothing, they’ll want to know.”

   Harry sighed and flicked his wand at the empty grate, causing the black coals to burst into life, filling the room with heat and firelight. He opened up the pouch in his other hand, removed a pinch of glittering powder and flung it into the new born flames.

   Hermione stood apart from all three of the other students, her arms folded protectively around her. She was on the very edge of losing her mind, and breathing slowly in and out of her nose was all that was stopping her from screaming aloud and running around the room.

   This was everything that was familiar to her, but it had been distorted, like a funhouse mirror. Her best friend was cold and impatient, her other best friend was dead and when she looked in the mirror she saw a stranger. The only one who was vaguely on her side was a boy she’d only spoke a dozen words to previously, and the Headmaster she’d relied on her whole school life for guidance and support was, according to Potter, no use to anybody much at all. How could this be real, this mirror world?

   She could feel panic creeping up inside her, so she clenched her jaw down and her fists together and watched as the flames sparked and glittered with the powder Harry had thrown at them. “Godric’s Hollow, Potter residence,” he called out in a clear voice.

Terry was watching too, and Hermione allowed herself to take him in properly for the first time. Harry and Parvati looked pretty much like they always did, except Parvati was about a stone underweight, but Terry – she wasn’t sure how he normally looked, so she couldn’t compare. He wore light blue jeans that belled over a fat, smooth pair of trainers. His t-shirt read ‘AC/DC’ but the slash sign was shaped like a lightning bolt, and over that he wore a slim fitted bottle green military jacket with colourful badges stitched on to it in random places. Poking out from the sleeves on his wrists were what looked like grey leg warmers, and on his head was a woollen beanie hat in the same shade of grey.

   She only glanced him over, but he caught her eye as she did. He raised an eyebrow over his frameless glasses and she was just about offer some sort of explanation, when a vile sting of profanities came flying out of the fireplace.

   “Argh!” cried Harryas H

Harry as he flung himself out of the mantelpiece, desperately patting down his clothes where they’d caught fire. Parvati screamed and jumped to his aid, and the two of them fell to the floor as the flames dies down. Hermione stared open mouthed.

   “OW!” shouted Harry, then tried to calm himself with a few breaths before massaging his head.

   Terry walked over and peered into the fireplace. “Are you alright?” Hermione couldn’t help but ask.

   Harry slammed his hands on the classroom floor. “Do I look alright!” he snapped. Hermione crossed her arms again.

   “I was only asking,” she huffed back. “I’m sorry I bothered.”

   Parvati ignored her. “Harry,” she said concerned, inspecting his face for further injury. “What happened?”

   “Bashed my face on the back on the back of the chimney,” he said crossly. “And lit myself on fire.”

   “So the spell didn’t work?” said Terry, coming over to where they were sitting on the floor, and held out his hand. “Give me the powder, let me try.”

   Harry rolled his eyes, but gave the other boy his pouch without a word. Terry walked back over to the flames and chucked a generous pinch of glitter into them. He watched studiously as the spell took effect, then leant into the fire.

   “Godric’s Hollow, Potter residence,” he said, exactly as Harry had done, then waited a moment more before throwing his head and shoulders into the flames.

   And jumped straight back out again, hands flailing and face contorted in pain. He stumbled into a desk, then grabbed hold of it. “Ouch,” he said with forced measure, brushing away the few patches of smoke and fire he’d earned for his troubles, then rubbed his head gingerly.

   Hermione stepped forward, pushing aside her hesitations. So what if these people didn’t like her, they weren’t really real. “Maybe this fireplace isn’t hooked up to the network properly,” she said boldly. “Or maybe there’s a problem at your parents house, or the powder’s faulty.” She looked between the three of them and prepared herself for rejection. “Perhaps I should try, to eliminate some possibilities?”

   Harry stopped rubbing his head and Parvati, again, just ignored her. Harry shrugged. “Why not,” he sighed, then jerked his thumb at Terry. “Grab some powder, give it a go.”

   Hermione knew it was irrational, but having this Other Harry give her some support raised her spirits wonderfully. She took the powder from Terry and inspected it in her palm. It looked standard enough, but how much could you really tell from just looking? She prodded it with her wand a bit, but couldn’t see anything irregular from that either, so threw it into the blaze.

   “Ottery St. Catchpole,” she said loudly. “The Burrow.” It was the first place that came into her head, she realised as she thrust herself into the fire, but it wasn’t until she popped through on the other side did she realised her mistake.

   She could feel the flames tickling harmlessly on her shoulders and neck, but a cool breeze was now blowing across her face in a dimly lit room. She gasped as she took in the very familiar sight of the Weasleys kitchen, but what she was actually now looking at was its ghost.

   The large wooden table she had eaten at countless times was pushed against the wall, and the chairs were scattered about the room at all angles. Cobwebs and dust covered everything, there were dark blast marks spotted on the walls, and the window facing the garden had a long crack running through it, stained brown with age.

   However the Weasleys had died, she couldn’t help but think it had happened here, right in front of where she was looking.

With a deep, shuddery gasp, she pulled herself back through the fire and into the Muggle Studies classroom. She dropped to the ground beside Harry and Parvati, panting and blinking back tears.

   “It works just fine,” she managed to stammer after a moment. “There must be a problem connecting to your parents house.”

   Harry nodded tersely, then looked between Terry and Parvati. “How about a neighbour’s house?” Terry suggested. “One of the other wizard families in the village?”

   “I’ll do it,” said Parvati quickly. But she yielded the same result as the boys, bashing her head and catching the end of her plated hair on fire. Hermione would have felt guilty at being the only one not to hurt herself on the chimney, but she was too busy feeling sick at seeing the grisly remnants of the Weasleys ruined home.

   “When was the last time you spoke to them?” asked Parvati, still smacking the smouldering tip of her hair, the air rank with the smell of it.

   Harry looked grey as he rubbed his hand down his face. “Last night,” he said hoarsely. “About eleven-ish.”

   Terry pulled his beanie off, ruffled his hair, then yanked the hat back on again. “That’s only a few hours ago, I’m sure they’re fine.”

   Hermione was nodding, though her heart wasn’t really in it. She knew after her years at Hogwarts that if something seemed bad, it probably was. But out loud she said: “Let’s go see McGonagall. She can tell us if the Ministry’s put up a cordon around the village or something, and help us with what to do next.”

   Harry stood up and brushed his slightly singed clothes down. “Okay,” he said, his voice flat. “Let’s go try that.”

 

***

 

   Harry Potter slammed back into Hogwarts school through the front doors and strode purposefully across the cool, shadowy entranceway. Alex’s pendent bounced up and down on his chest, and as Harry heard the double doors close behind him he grabbed it and shoved it down his t-shirt again. Whatever was going on with the necklace, the realities, Harry was going to find out, then he was going to get back home and jolly well stay there for the rest of his life. He’d seen more than enough parallel universes now, he just wanted to get on and deal with the troubles his regular reality generally provided.

   “Potter?” a woman’s voice rang across the entranceway, and Harry looked up to see Professor McGonagall descending the stairway. He stopped and looked at her in apprehension. He’d hoped he could have avoided speaking to anybody before he got himself home again. It was more trouble than it was worth.

   “Yes Professor?” he asked in trepidation, watching as she made her way down the stairs. She reached the end and stopped to consider him.

   “I have just spoken with Miss Granger,” she said in her clipped Scottish accent. “Who informed me you were not feeling well at breakfast.”

   Harry groaned inwardly. Trust Hermione to take matters into her own hands. “I’m fine,” he said with as much sincerity as he could muster. After all, he genuinely wasn’t feeling ill, just aggravated.  

   She peered over her rectangular glasses at him. “Fainting does not constitute ‘fine’ Mr Potter,” she said firmly. “Particularly given the circumstances last summer. I insist you take a trip to Madam Pomfrey and get checked over.”

   Harry tried to keep his cool, but he was still calming down from his outburst at Alex for, as Harry saw it, messing everything up. The pendant felt practically hot against his chest as he looked at McGonagall and clicked his jaw. “I don’t have time,” he said as measured as he could.

   She pinched her lips together, and raised an eyebrow. “And what, if it’s not too much to ask, is so important you would risk the safety of yourself, your friends and this very school?”

   Harry blinked at her, and he felt his anger fading. “Risk the safety...?”

   “We cannot,” she said with conviction. “Have another situation like the one at the Ministry. You of all people should understand the cost of You-Know-Who’s manipulation, and the lengths he will go to to get what he wants.” A look of pity crossed her face. “If he...is trying to gain access to your thoughts again, it would be best if we knew in advance, so we can help you to protect yourself. Do you understand?”

   No, Harry wanted to yell at her. He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. What ‘circumstances’ last summer, why did they go to the Ministry? How would he be risking everyone’s safety? Could Voldemort poke about in his brain is this reality?

   But he could see he wasn’t going to get out of this. Professor McGonagall was a formidable woman, and if she was insisting he go to the medical ward, the quickest way to get to the library and work on his problem would be to visit the school nurse, prove he was fine, then escape as soon as he could.

   “Yes,” he said with a nod. He was aware he sounded false and stilted, but it was the best he could do. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll go right now.”

   Without waiting for a response he moved around his head of year and started up the stairs, two at a time.

   His journey to the medical wing was relatively unmarred. Some people smiled or said hello, some people, generally Slytherins, scowled or whispered, and the occasional first year scuttled away in fear. But nobody stopped him.

   He blinked as he clamoured into a passageway behind a tapestry and had a go at mentally rummaging around his head. Could Voldemort really get in there and see what he was seeing? Was that how the other Harry had endangered people last summer, and what had happened at the Ministry? Having only just had such a dreadful ordeal there, it sent a chill down Harry’s spine to think something had happened in this reality too only a few months previous.

   And what about Sirius? He felt his throat tighten and he paused with one foot into the corridor, causing two young Ravenclaw girls to stop and stare. How had he died, how could Harry have possibly let that happen? Had they recaptured him, just like in his home universe, and given him a Dementor’s Kiss? Or worse? Harry swallowed and moved all the way out of the passage and carried on to the medical wing, leaving the Ravenclaws to their whispering. Perhaps that was what had happened at the Ministry, maybe this Harry had tried to stop it?

   His head ached with worry as he stepped into Madame Pomfrey’s domain, and he decided to ask her for something to soothe it. But as he opened the door to Medical, he stopped short, all thoughts of his headache forgotten.

   Professor Dumbledore was sitting on one of the beds in front of him, swinging his feet above the ground, his hands cupped in his lap. His face lit up as Harry froze in the entranceway.

   “Ah,” he said, hopping off the bed and extending his hand outwards. “Harry, how delightful to see you, please come in.”

   Harry’s eyes flicked down the length of the ward; they were the only two people there. “Where’s Madame Pomfrey?” he asked, then kicked himself. He was supposed to be trying to act normal, not suspicious like he’d committed a crime. Though technically, body-swapping would probably count as theft.

   Dumbledore smiled, making his eyes crinkle, and beckoned him forwards again. “Poppy is very keen to see you after Minerva’s reports of your ill health,” he said kindly, patting the bed. “And will be with you as soon as she has completed her reports. I was hoping to run a few questions by you myself, if you don’t mind?”

   Harry felt his heart racing in his chest, and his headache was becoming even worse, like a tight pressure on his brain. “Sure,” he said through dry lips, letting the door swing shut with a weighty dull thud. “Of course.”

   He walked over and sat on the bed Dumbledore had patted, and the Headmaster sat on the one next to it, facing him with his legs swinging like before. Harry’s eyes were drawn instantly to Dumbledore’s left hand, which was covered by a black leather gloveHarryn    #

 

 

. Harry wanted to ask if he was okay, but the question caught in his mouth: what if this Harry knew exactly what had happened to Albus Dumbledore’s hand to necessitate concealing it?

   Dumbledore smiled though and acted as if Harry hadn’t seen the glove, let alone was bothered by it. “As you can imagine,” he said cheerfully. “We don’t make light of any student losing consciousness at this school, especially when they’ve just had a breakfast like the one on offer this morning.” His eyes twinkled like the Headmaster Harry knew, but there was something very tired behind them, and his gaze flicked involuntarily back to the glove for the briefest of seconds. Again Dumbledore gave no indication he had noticed.

   “But with you, matters are a little more delicate aren’t they?”

   Harry rubbed the back of his neck, then touched his scar. “Yes,” he said, picking every word with the greatest of care. “You could say that.” If only you knew, he thought to himself, just how messed up I really am.

   “Would you tell me,” asked Dumbledore. “If Voldemort was encroaching on your mind again?”

   Harry felt his pulse quicken slightly again. Was this what McGonagall had been talking about? “Of course,” he said. “I wouldn’t keep something like that secret.”

   Dumbledore smiled, but sadly this time. “The death of Sirius Black,” he began, and instantly Harry felt his hackles raise. He wanted to yell that Sirius wasn’t actually dead, but his brain shut his mouth up tight. He was just going to have to accept that in this world Harry Potter had lost his godfather as well as his parents. “Took a great toll on us all,” continued Dumbledore. “But you mustn’t blame yourself.”

   Harry swallowed and tried not to look guilty. Had it, in fact, _been_ this Harry’s fault, was that what Dumbledore was saying? He felt a sudden flare of anger towards his doppelganger.

   “I can’t believe he’s gone,” he managed to say truthfully over the ringing in his ears. Even if he didn’t know the details, the shock and horror he felt knowing Sirius was dead was real no matter what reality he came from.

   “Sirius loved you very much,” said Dumbledore, watching Harry’s face carefully, but Harry didn’t have to fake the twinge of emotion.

   He nodded. “I know,” he said thickly.

   “So,” said Dumbledore. “No matter what you saw, what visions you have, will you promise to keep me informed, even if you’re not sure what you’ve seen?”

   Visions? Harry shifted uncomfortably on the stiff hospital mattress. “Sure,” he said tightly. “But I didn’t see anything this morning I swear, I just blacked out for a second.” He smiled. “Probably not enough sugar,” he added for good measure. “Ron gave me pancakes.”

   Dumbledore regarded him, and Harry dropped his eyes. He wasn’t sure why he was so determined to hide the truth about the Dimensional Leap from this other Headmaster, but he was. Part of him wanted to come clean, so he wouldn’t have to play games or lie, but then the other part of him just couldn’t trust that would end well. As far as he was concerned, the other Harry could just wake up thinking he’d lost a few hours memory, and that would be that. He desperately didn’t want to mess up another one of his counter-part’s lives like he had in the last reality.

   “Yes,” said Dumbledore. “I’m sure pancakes would help with that, how thoughtful of Mr Weasley.” He crinkled his eyes in a smile again, and regarded Harry in a very relaxed manner, like they were discussing the unusually warm weather.

   Harry looked hopefully over at Madame Pomfrey’s office, but she was nowhere in sight to rescue him. “Maybe I should come back later?”he suggested, but Dumbledore was already shaking his head.

“She’ll be out shortly, no need to fret,” he said.

   Harry stared out the window, and began making a mental list of the books he needed to find to recreate Hermione’s research. Dumbledore could sit with him if he wanted, he didn’t have to entertain him in the meantime.

   “That’s an unusual item you’ve got round your neck,” said the Headmaster lightly, but Harry all but jumped and looked down at his chest. The amulet was still hidden under his t-shirt. “There is,” said Dumbledore, almost in response to his thoughts. “An unusual aura coming from the pendant.” He held out the hand minus the glove. “May I?”

   Harry felt a flutter of nerves. What harm could it cause? he reasoned, but it was still with trepidation that he pulled the chain from around his neck and dropped it into Dumbledore’s palm. What if this was an evil Dumbledore? he thought irrationally. It was ridiculous really to think that Albus Dumbledore could have malicious intent, but then again stranger things had happened. He resisted the urge to snatch Alex’s gift back.

   “Fascinating,” the Headmaster murmured, looking the amulet over carefully in the Harry

sunlight. “I’ve not quite seen anything like this. Where did you get it?”

   His eyes suddenly lifted from the necklace and connected with Harry’s, who all but audibly gulped. “Where did I get it?” he stammered. “It...it was a gift.” That was the truth at least.

   “How lovely,” said Dumbledore. “From whom? If you don’t mind me asking.” His tone was conversational, but Harry detected a hint of insistence behind it.

   His mouth was bone dry. Why didn’t he just tell him an immortal named Alex had given it to him so, in another reality, it could extract a bit of Voldemort from a _third_ reality, but instead had in all likeliness sent him to this universe instead? Yeah. That was why.

   “Hermione,” he blurted out. “She um, got it in a trinket shop in Diagon Ally. She said it would make me feel better about Sirius. You know, after how he died.” He shrugged and tried a weak smile, but his guts were in knots. Why did he have to say that? He didn’t know anything about how Sirius had died.

   Dumbledore’s expression became serious, and he closed his fingers around the amulet. Harry’s pulse quickened. What if the Headmaster confiscated it? He was pretty sure he needed it to get home, or at the very least it was important enough for him to need to hold on to.

   “Harry,” he said quietly. “The Veil is a very complicated, uncharted area of the Ministry’s research. When Sirius fell through he went to a place we can’t follow. You understand that don’t you?”

   Harry opened, then closed his mouth. He had no idea what Dumbledore was talking about, what veil? How could a veil kill someone, wasn’t that what brides wore?

   “Yeah,” he said, non-committedly.  

   Dumbledore glanced at his gloved hand. “We all have loved ones we would give anything to talk to again,” he said, in a tone of voice Harry had never heard him use before. “But we cannot,” he concluded firmly. “That is the burden we must bear.”

   Harry wasn’t sure what to say, not only because the Headmaster was certainly referring to something personal, but also because without a doubt Harry was in danger of putting his foot right in it.

   “It’s just a necklace,” he said awkwardly, feigning ignorance. “It’s actually a bit girly if you ask me, I only wear it to make Hermione happy.” He wondered if Dumbledore could see the beads of sweat on his forehead.

   Dumbledore suddenly turned his closed hand over, indicating he wanted to give the amulet back to Harry. For someone so advanced in his years he moved remarkably quickly.

   “You have very thoughtful friends,” said Dumbledore as he let the necklace drop into Harry’s hand and he quickly looped it around his head again.

   “Thanks,” Harry mumbled. They’re pretty much like the Ron and Hermione I know, he thought to himself. Dumbledore frowned.

   “I think Poppy is ready to see to you now,” he said warmly, and on queue Poppy Pomfrey came bustling out of her office, brandishing a thermometer like a conductor’s baton. “I will see you soon, Harry Potter.”

   He swept out of the room, closing the door behind him, and Harry blew out a sigh of relief. That had been tricky, he thought as Madame Pomfrey shoved the thermometer under his tongue.

   “Hold still,” she instructed, taking his pulse. “So what did we do this time Harry?” she asked, looking at her watch as she felt his blood pumping through his wrist. “Fall off a broomstick, charge into a dragon’s nest?”

   “Fainted in the Great Hall,” Harry said awkwardly around the thermometer. She harrumphed.

   “A little banal for you,” she said, letting go of his arm. “But nothing really to worry about.” She shone the lit tip of her wand into his eyes. “Unless you saw a vision of You-Know-Who trying to hurt somebody, I’d put it down to low blood sugars.”

   Harry managed a smile, despite the revulsion at the idea of seeing Voldemort hurting anyone. “That’s what I said,” he told her. An orange and blue lolly pop was thrust in front of his face.

   “Have that,” he was instructed. “Don’t climb any high objects for a few hours or perform dangerous spells, think you can manage that?”

   Harry took the lolly. “That’s it?” he asked.

   “That’s it,” agreed Poppy with a nod. “Now off with you, you’re taking up space.”

   Harry looked around at the empty ward, but slid of the bed and out of the medical wing without a word.

   Now he was even more confused than he had been before.

 

***

 

   Ron Weasley stared at the light blue sky and watched as clumps of white, fluffy clouds drifted their way past. They looked so peaceful and carefree.

“Stupid clouds,” muttered Ron, yanking up a handful of grass.

   He was lying on his back in the front garden of his other family’s house, near where the blond boy Chris had parked his gleaming old car. Even the grass was wrong, Ron thought as he pulled out some more. It was so thick and tuff, and the green was more vibrant compared to proper grass.

   How could he have been so unlucky, to end up in a universe where his family were living like Muggles. And in _America._ It was just so far away from everything he knew, or anyone he might think of to help him. Harry had gone to find that other Hermione at her parents’ house, but Ron didn’t think he could do that. Even if he tried the Floo Network, he knew there were international restrictions, and even if he found Hermione he might be endangering her life by telling her she was a witch. His mum-who-wasn’t-his-mum had explained how dangerous it had got with Voldemort, that’s why they’d had to leave.

   Ron tore up another handful of grass. She’d just seemed so scared, it was so unlike his mum. Normally she’d charge in head first at the mere suggestion one of her children were in danger, but now she was content to wait for the problem to be fixed by those back in Ron’s home world. He had felt so hurt by her for abandoning him like that he’d left the kitchen without even eating the cupcake she’d given him, and, not knowing where else to go, had been lying on the grass ever since. He was slightly regretting not at least taking the cupcake with him, as his stomach was rumbling now.

   He ran his fingers along the dirt instead. If he waited around to be rescued like his mum wanted, he might never leave. He could be stuck in this non-magical version of his life forever. And didn’t she want her own son back? Wasn’t she worried where he was? Ron certainly was, it made him feel queasy to think he was walking around in someone else’s skin, so he was trying not to. But it was unfamiliar, his _body_ was unfamiliar. There was a scar on his knee and one on his arm that were never normally there, and his legs felt tighter, like there was more muscle on them. He shuddered and stared back up at the clouds, focusing on his breathing, and not that they weren’t actually his lungs he was using.

   He had to take matters into his own hands, get back by himself. But how? He hadn’t understood any of the magic Hermione had been working on with the Professors, and even if he did she’d said time and again how much harder it was to send yourself back rather than have someone pull you back. Maybe he should just sit back and wait to be rescued.

   That’s not what Harry did though, he reasoned, back last November. Harry always fought for what he wanted. And more than anything Ron wanted to be back in his own body living his own life.

   The sound of a car engine roused Ron’s curiosity, and he propped himself up on his elbows to see a silver car so large it looked like a van swing into the driveway of the Nicholls’ house and park. The doors opened and the passengers jumped out, two of whom Ron recognised but looked jarringly different.

   His dad had been at the wheel, and was wearing genuine Muggle clothes, not the crazy miss-match he normally sported when venturing into a Muggle environment, but actual jeans and a polo shirt. He had a little pot belly he’d never had back in Ron’s world, and his balding red hair had streaks of grey in it.

   “Hey son!” he cried out with a wave to Ron. Ron managed a little wave back, but his eyes were on the other man that had just stepped from the passenger seat at the front.

   It was his eldest brother Bill, but Ron had had to look twice to realise it. All his long hair was cut into a more traditional cropped style, and it changed his entire appearance. He wore beige chinos with a brown belt and a cream shirt, smart shoes and a big watch on his wrist that glittered in the sunlight.

   “Hey bro,” he said cheerfully in that strange accent, slamming the door shut and walked to the back door as it slid open. A little Hispanic looking lady swung her legs out. She had long black hair, a round face and a solid look about her, but she was still very pretty in the floral summer dress she was wearing, and Bill gave her his hands to help her hop down.

   “Ah!” she cried with a laugh, and began jumping around, shaking her left leg. “Cramp!” Bill laughed at her as he reached back into the large car.

   “What’s mommy doing, hey?” he asked as he emerged again with a small child in his arms. Ron stared in shock. Was Bill a dad?

   He placed the little girl on the ground and she began giggling, skipping and clapping along with the woman’s attempts to relieve her cramp. She was wearing a pink dress with a serious amount of frills on it and several underskirts in a lighter shade of pink. On her head was a tiara with plastic jewels and in her hand was gripped a silver magic wand with a star at the end and pink streamers dangling from it. Ron felt his stomach tighten. It was just a plastic toy, not a real wand. Still, it seemed a bit of a cruel joke.

   The woman gave up and leant against Bill, massaging her cramping foot in her hands. She barely came up to his shoulder. “Away with you,” she said good humouredly to the girl with a wave of her hand. Her accent was not like the rest of Ron’s alternate family, and definitely had some sort of Spanish twang to it. “Go see your Uncle Ron.”

   Uncle Ron? he thought with a start. This really must be Bill’s family. But that’s all he got to think.

   “Ron Ron!” cried the little girl, and sprinted over with startling speed considering how short her legs were. Ron tried to sit up, but he wasn’t quick enough. The girl launched herself into the air and body slammed him on the chest, slamming them both back down to the ground.

   “Ooff!” he cried as all his breath was knocked from his lungs.

   The girl started jumping all over him like he was a bouncy castle. She could only have been about three years old but she still weighed an awful lot.

   “Olivia no!” cried Bill, though he was laughing too much for it to really be stern as he scooped up the little girl, Olivia, and rescued Ron from her onslaught. “Sorry man,” Bill said. “The flight always makes her a little nuts.”

   Ron coughed and nodded as Olivia grinned. He had a niece. Wow. She had her mother’s black hair and eyes, but her skin tone was a little lighter, like Bill’s.   She’d wrapped her body around Bill’s leg, and when the Hispanic lady (who Ron assumed to be his wife) called him to help remove their luggage from the car’s boot, he walked off with little Olivia still clinging to his leg, giggling away.

   Ron looked at her sadly. She was half witch that child; would she ever know it? Would she go to school, or would she spend her whole life ignorant like this Ron had. He coughed again and watched her sadly as she grabbed a small pink wheelie suitcase and proudly marched it up to the front door of his parents’ house.

   The Hispanic woman waved tiredly at Ron as she threw several bags over her shoulders. “Sorry Ron,” she said in that accent that seemed to reverberate off her tongue. “I didn’t even say hi! Are you okay?”

   He wasn’t sure how to answer that question, and his mouth was half open before he remembered his accent wasn’t like it would normally sound to them. “Sure,” he managed, spluttering out a realistic enough cough at the same time.

   “See you inside,” his brother called as they and Ron’s dad Arthur dragged all their belongings through the front door.

   Ron fell back on the grass and rubbed his eyes. He felt irrationally sorry for Fleur Delacour, it was almost like Bill was cheating on her.

   “Ron?”

   He looked up. The boys he had woken up with were hovering by the side of the house, like they’d come from the back maybe. They were looking at him uncertainly, and Ron was sure his face had the same expression. He shouldn’t really talk to them, it would be too confusing.

   “Yeah?” he said blandly. Perhaps he could convince them he wasn’t feeling well and send them away.

   They shared a glance then began slowly walking over. Ron sat up fully and propped his elbows on his knees, then shielded his eyes from the sunlight to look up at them. The blond one, Chris, shrugged at the black guy A.J., who turned to Ron and spoke.

   “What’s a Muggle?”

   Ron felt like someone popped his lungs. “W-what?” he said.

   “We figured,” said A.J., holding up his hands. “That it was code for something, like drugs.”

   “Yeah,” said Chris with enthusiasm. “Did your family used to have a problem or something?”

   Ron blinked at them.   “You were listening?” he said, a sinking feeling in his gut. “To me and my mum?”

   A.J. looked a little embarrassed, but Chris nodded proudly. “We had to make sure she wasn’t gonna rip you a new one.”

   The Ministry of Magic was so strict about revealing magic to Muggles, Ron couldn’t imagine the American equivalent was any different. He jumped to his feet and started looking around for any signs of wizards swooping down to modify the two boys memories. But there was no one.

   “That was nothing,” he said, still looking around. “You shouldn’t have been listening, it’s complicated.”

   “So – which is it?” Ron turned to see A.J. frowning at him.

   “Huh?” he asked. Never mind the memory modification, if the American Ministry came here it would blow his family’s cover, maybe even risk their lives.

   A.J. glanced at Chris. “Is it nothing, or complicated?”

   Ron thought a moment. “Both.” He tried to usher them towards the car. “So if you don’t mind I should probably be with my family right now.”

   But the boys seemed rooted to the ground. Chris leant in and peered at his face, like he was an experiment gone wrong. “You,” he squinted and tilted his face. _“Can’t_ do accents. At all.”

   Ron threw up his hands. “No,” he agreed. “I can’t, so what?”

   “So how come you still sound like Dick Van Dyke?” He looked at A.J. “Can brain injuries do that?”

   Ron didn’t know who Dick Van Dyke was, but he didn’t think now was the time to ask. A.J. spoke before he could anyway.

   “There’s a whole lot of other stuff bothering me,” he said. “And that accent is just one of them.”

   Chris shoved his hands into his pockets, and Ron adjusted the backwards cap on his head. “I told you, you shouldn’t have been listening,” he said uncomfortably.

   “But we were,” said A.J. sternly. “And your mom said you moved from England, not Columbus, which is weird enough, but then you start talking about magic and alternate realities like you’re in some stupid movie. Why?”

   Ron looked around the street again. There were still no Ministry people jumping from the nicely kept bushes to arrest him.

   “Because it’s true?” he suggested weakly with a shrug.

   “You’re some other dude in Ron’s body?” clarified Chris.

   “And you can do magic?” added A.J.

   Ron rubbed his forehead. This sunshine was giving him a headache, and he was probably burning. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think I should be telling you this though, it could get us all in trouble.”

   “Course,” said Chris. “Because Mulder and Scully are gonna come on down here with the M.I.B. and flash away our memories.”

   “Dude,” said A.J. quietly, leaning towards the blond boy. “Those are alien catchers.”

   “But he’s right,” said Ron, pointing a finger. “I don’t want you to get your memories altered. And it could be dangerous for my family. Or, the other Ron’s family I mean.”

   Chris and A.J. stared. “I don’t get it,” said A.J. shaking his head.

   “It is a lot to take in,” said Ron sympathetically, but A.J. pulled a dismissive face.

   “No,” he said firmly. “What’s your angle? Why pull a stunt like this? It’s not funny. Are you just trying to make us look like jerks – and why get your mom in on it anyway? It’s not like you.”

   Ron rolled his eyes and slumped back down to the grass again. “You don’t know anything about me,” he said. “You just met me. The Ron you know probably wouldn’t make something like this up, because ‘this’ is be stupid, and I’d like to think we have a little bit more sense between us that that.”

“See,” said A.J. holding his hand up at Ron but talking to Chris. “That’s just not funny.”

   “It’s not meant to be funny,” grumbled Ron.

   Chris scuffed his foot on the ground. “So this other Ron,” he said. “He comes from England?”

   “Don’t encourage him,” said A.J.

   Ron glowered up at the black boy. “I am here you know,” he said. “And yes he does – I mean I do,” he told Chris. “I live in Devon, but school’s in Scotland. That’s where I was before...”

   A.J. raised an eyebrow. “Before you switched bodies?” he asked patronisingly.

   “Yes,” growled Ron through his teeth. “But the spell went wrong, I wasn’t supposed to come here.”

   Chris was shaking his head. “You know,” he said. “The sci-fi stuff isn’t so nuts, it’s at least half plausible. But magic?” He shrugged. “That’s just insane.”

   “Yeah, you’re right,” agreed Ron, yanking up more grass. He wasn’t in the mood for this inquisition. “Magic isn’t real, there’s no such thing as dragons or vampires, and people don’t play sports on broomsticks.”

   “There’s no need to be a jerk,” said A.J.

   “Well I didn’t tell you to ask me a bunch of questions, did I?” flared Ron.

   A.J. crossed his arms. “C’mon Chris,” he said. “Let’s go, maybe he’ll calm down later.”

   “Urgh,” said Ron, flopping backwards on the grass. “Finally, thank you.”

   Chris looked between him and A.J. “Dude,” he said. “He’s right, why would you make this stuff up, it’s just lame?”

   Ron rubbed his eyes. “I thought you were leaving,” he said, staring at the clouds again. Until he felt a trainer jab into his ribcage. “Ow!” he cried, sitting back up indignantly. “What the Hell?”

   “So talk to us you moron,” snapped Chris. “We’ve been buddies since kindergarten, stop treating us like jack-asses.”

   Ron rubbed his ribs and scowled. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he snapped. “I’m not who you think I am, end of.”

   “So you’re a magician, is that it? From another dimension?” A.J. made a clicking noise at the back of his throat.

   “I already told you,” griped Ron. “Yes. Except it’s wizard, not magician – but, whatever, I don’t expect you to believe me, so why don’t you just go.”

   “Do some magic then.”

   “Excuse me?” asked Ron, shielding his eyes again and looking up at Chris.

   “Do a magic trick,” he said, flicking his hand at Ron’s chest. “Prove it to us.”

   Ron made an exasperated noise. “I need a _wand,”_ he all but shouted, then remembered what his mum said about keeping a low profile and lowered his voice. “Otherwise don’t you think I would have shown you something already?”

   A.J. actually laughed. “Very convenient. Okay, give me a call when you’re ready to stop insulting us. Chris, let’s go shoot some more hoops.”

   Ron, though, finally lost the little shred of sanity he’d been clinging to. “Convenient?” he cried, scrambling to his feet as the two boys walked to the car. He knew he should just let them leave, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. _“Convenient!_ I’m stranded a billion miles from home, with no one who wants or even knows how to help me, in the wrong bloody body and you think I’m making this up, for _fun?”_ He felt dizzy, like he was going to pass out; he’d stood up too quickly, not eaten anything and his head was still pounding. He sucked in a lungful of warm air as the two American boys stopped and stared, mid-way to the car. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and you’ve got the nerve to tell me it’s convenient! How about you just-”

   But he didn’t get a chance to tell them what he thought they should do, because something exploded at the end of the driveway.

   Ron stumbled back in shock, as did the other two boys. Instantly Ron’s hand flown for his wand in his pocket, only to remember it wasn’t there. “What the...?”

   The thing that had exploded had been some sort of box on a stick. The box was now no more than little shards of metal scattered across the grass, and as they watched the stick teetered slowly over and hit the ground, like a tree being felled.

   “Dude!” cried Chris. “Someone put a grenade in your mailbox!”

   Ron walked closer, inspecting the blast site. There didn’t appear to have been anything else in the ‘mailbox’ as Chris had called it. He turned over a larger bit of metal with his toe. “I think,” he said slowly. “I did that.”

   “You put a bomb in your own mailbox?” asked A.J.

   “No,” said Ron. “Of course not, it was an accident. Uncontrolled magic. I used to do it all the time when I was younger, it’s supposed to stop when you go to school. But I guess this Ron’s never been to school,” he added, wiggling his doppelganger’s fingers.

   “We see you every day at school,” said Chris scornfully as Ron picked up the shard he’d been nudging with his trainer. It was still warm.

   “Not magic school,” he said, turning over the metal in his hands. “Not Hogwarts.”

   “Not what?” said A.J.

   “Erm,” said Ron. “Hogwarts.” He realised what a strange word it was saying it to someone who had never heard of it. “My school. Once you start being trained you stop doing stuff like that by accident.”

   “I think people would notice kids blowing stuff up,” said A.J.

   Ron shrugged. “You’d be amazed what lengths people will go to ignore weirdness.”

   “Oh,” said Chris. Ron turned to see he had his fingers pressed to his temples. “Oh,” he said again, then looked in horror at A.J.

   “What?” said the black boy.

   “Eighth Grade,” stammered Chris. “Miss Pimsbury made us all try out for the musical, like as a punishment or something.”

   “Yeah because _you_ let the class newts loose,” said A.J. with a raised eyebrow. “So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

   Chris pointed at Ron. “Don’t you remember what happened?” Ron felt confused but A.J. just shook his head impatiently.

   “Obviously not.”

   Chris jabbed his finger in Ron’s direction again. “When we had to sing that awful song, and on Ron’s turn-”

   “No,” said A.J. quickly. “No you are not saying you think he did that.”

   Chris turned his attention back to Ron. “The girl that was playing the piano said it was too hot in there, that the ink from her music smudged and she couldn’t play anymore so you had to stop. But we saw it!” He excitedly flicked his finger back and forth between himself and A.J. “The ink didn’t smudge, the notes _melted off the page!_ They ran all the way down onto the keys, just the notes, not the lines or anything. Does that sound like accidental magic?”

   Ron couldn’t believe it. Did this boy actually believe him? He wasn’t sure that was really a good thing, but he couldn’t help but feel a spark of relief.

   “Yeah,” he said. “That definitely sounds like it. I once made my dad’s newspaper do the same thing because he said I was too young to play Quidditch.”

   “And that time we were playing ball against the Razerbacks, you scored from across the other end of the court, you were a Goddamn hero!”

   “That was a lucky shot,” protested A.J.

   “Do you really believe that?” challenged Chris. “They tested him for steroids for crying out loud, no one could explain how he did it. Oh!” He turned back to Ron. “And Ginevra, when that girl was taking her lunch money, you and the twins told her to stop but she didn’t then her hair turned blue!”

   Ron had to laugh. Maybe it was the relief of feeling like someone was on his side. “Yeah that sounds like something we’d do.”

   Chris stare open mouthed at him. “So it’s true?”

   Ron rubbed the back of his neck again. “Yeah,” he said with a nod. “My whole family are wizards and witches. But you heard what my mum said, they don’t know apart from my parents and Bill. The other Ron doesn’t know.”

   “Hot damn,” said Chris running his hand through his blond hair. He turned to A.J. “Homeboy’s a real life wizard.”

   A.J. swallowed. “There’s got to be a logical explanation,” he said in a small voice. Chris held open his hands.

   “I know it’s nuts man, but what else you got?”

   Ron felt light-headed. He wasn’t alone, he had a friend.

   A.J. folded his arms and looked back at the mailbox. But before he could come up with an answer though the front door of the house opened, and Ron’s brother Bill came hurrying out. He stopped when he caught sight of Chris and A.J.

   “Um,” he said, slowing his walk down. “Hi guys.” He looked so strange with short hair, Ron found it a bit unnerving. The dragon tooth earring was gone as well. “Mind if I talk with my brother a moment?”

   Chris was grinning from ear to ear. “Sure man,” he said tapping his nose. “Whatever you say, your secret’s safe with us.” Bill stared, then turned on Ron.

   “What have you told them?”

   Ron held his hands up defensively. “They were eavesdropping on me and mum, and then they wouldn’t let up. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything, but I don’t think they believe me anyway.”

   “I do,” piped up Chris with a wink.

   Bill didn’t seem sure what to say. “She was right,” he said eventually. “That accent really is uncanny.”

   Ron looked sheepishly at his big brother. “She told you what happened then?”

   Bill became cross. “She’s really upset you know,” he hissed, looking around to make sure no one was watching. “She says you hit your head, and now you’re talking about magic and parallel universes.”

   Ron bit his lip and glanced at A.J. and Chris. “I didn’t mean to upset her,” he said truthfully.

   “So that is what you’re saying?” Bill asked. He took a minute to think. “But it’s not possible.”

   Ron shrugged. “Mum said you did a year at school,” he said. “All kinds of things are possible with magic – teleportation, time travel-”

   “Time travel!” cried Chris. Bill waved a hand dismissively.

   “In a limited sense,” he said. “But jumping realities, taking over my brother’s body?” He shook his head.

   “I’m sorry,” said Ron.

   Bill looked him over.   “Say I believe you,” he said. “What does that mean about the Ron that should be in that body.” He faltered and clenched a fist. “Is he dead?”

   “Oh Merlin no!” cried Ron with a shaky laugh. “No, no, if we can get me home he’ll be fine, he’ll wake up not remembering a thing.”

   Bill narrowed his eyes. “You’ve done this before then? You know what to expect?”

   Ron shook his head. “No, but my best friend has.” He rubbed his eyes. “It’s all a bit complicated.”

   “Hmm,” agreed Bill.

   Ron looked back towards the house. “So she told you all about it then?”

   Bill checked over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said. “She told Lucila to take Olivia upstairs then explained everything to dad and I. She was doing that thing where she can’t find the right words, you know?”

   No, Ron did not know. The Molly he knew was a force of nature who never struggled for anything to say. “Does she still want me to sit around and wait to be rescued from back home?” he asked instead.

   Bill put his hands in his pockets. “Let’s take a walk.” He began slowly walking down the path with Ron by his side. Chris was right behind them with a reluctant A.J. trailing behind. He’d become very quiet, whereas Chris was listening wide eyed to everything that was being said.

   “They’re terrified,” continued Bill. “If you really come from a parallel universe, you won’t remember anything at all – you would probably be too young in any case. But back in England it was like a warzone. The Muggles blamed it on gang culture, but we knew better.”

   He kicked a stone as they passed another house on the street. They all looked the same, which was strange to Ron having grown up in a home that literally had been pieced together room by room over the years.

   “I understand,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is bring any trouble your way. But what if they don’t bring me back from my world? What if they can’t for some reason, I’d be stranded, and your Ron couldn’t come back.”

   Bill nodded thoughtfully. “I know,” he said sadly. “And I agree, I’ve always...” he paused and ran his tongue across his teeth. “Had the biggest trouble letting go of our old way of life. Charlie and Percy barely remember, but they never went to school, so they never actually practiced magic properly. And the rest of you guys were too young.”

   He picked at his well kept finger nails. “I begged mom and dad to let me keep studying, I promised I’d use a fake name, never tell a soul who we really were but they wouldn’t give in – it was just too big a risk. So that was that, we changed our name to Nicholls, I enrolled in the local middle school while Charlie and the others went to the elementary down the road. We tried to never talk about it, and covered up any accidents when we could.”

   “Like the mailbox,” chipped in Chris.

   Bill raised an eyebrow. “I wondered if that was you,” he muttered. He looked very sad as they walked in the morning heat. Ron heard a distant rumble of thunder again and felt very sorry for his brother. The thought of having magic torn away from him and being forced to live as a Muggle was almost too much to bear. It’s not that he ever felt wizards were better than Muggles, but it was bad enough in the summer holidays not being able to live life normally, let alone never again being able to do the simplest summoning spell or hover charm.

   “So I’m stuck then,” he said morosely. “There’s nothing I can do.”

   “Naw,” said Chris sincerely. “There’s gotta be something, right Bill?”

   A smile tugged at the corner of Bill’s mouth. “It took me a long time to let go of our old way of life,” he began. There was a slight hint of guilty confession in his voice. “I was, well, obsessed at going back to school. When it was clear I wouldn’t be going back to Hogwarts I started looking for other alternatives. And again after Olivia was born; it’ll be an almighty shock to Lucila, but I want her to have the choice when she’s older.” He looked off into the horizon as thunder rolled again “There are lots of magic schools in the world Ron.”

   Ron stopped walking – so did everyone else. “And?”

   Bill turned to look him in straight in the eye. “And The Salem Academy of Magic is in Essex County, Massachusetts”

   Ron gawped at him. “An American Hogwarts?” he asked and Bill nodded.

   “Mom and dad are too scared, and to be fair it would be asking too much to put them in this position. But the teachers at Salem might be able to help.”

   A flicker of hope had ignited in Ron’s belly where a cold sickness had been sitting. “How far away is it?”

   “Couple of states,” said Chris eagerly.

   “How do I get there?” Ron asked he couldn’t exactly Floo. From his back pocket Bill produced a notebook.

   “That’s everything I found when I was researching it years ago,” he told him. “It’s obviously unplotable, but I’ve got directions.”

   Chris grabbed the book before Ron had a chance to. “Road trip!” he breathed enthusiastically as he opened it up. A.J. looked alarmed.

   “What?”

   “You’d drive me there?” Ron asked, taken aback by the generosity. After all he’d technically only just met this boy.

   “I don’t know if they’ll let Muggles in,” said Bill uncertainly, but Chris shook his head.

   “My boy’s in trouble,” he said confidently. “He needs his buds to help him out, I don’t care what they say, we’ll get him in.”

   A.J. stepped up and took Chris by the shoulder. “Are you insane?” he asked calmly.

   Chris shrugged him off. “It’s only a few hours away,” he said. “Eight max, I did it last summer with my sister and our cousins.” He grinned at Ron. “They wanted to see the witch trials stuff.”

   “So you believe all this nonsense about magic?” demanded A.J., his tone stern. “You’re seriously saying you think that’s not really Ron, and people can just wave a wand and pull a rabbit out of a hat.”

   “Hey man,” said Chris shaking his head. “Sometimes you just gotta have a little faith. You believe in Jesus don’t you, and you’ve never seen him walking around?”

   A.J. set his jaw. “So you three are going to go to Massachusetts?”

   Bill held up his hands. “Oh no, I can’t, I’m sorry.” He did genuinely look sorry. “I have to look after my girls, and the rest of the family are going to be arriving for Ginevra’s bake sale thing.”

   “No,” said Ron through a tight throat. “Of course.” He did wish his brother could come with him though.

   Chris threw his arm around Ron’s shoulders. “Looks like it’s you and me buddy,” he said. “A.J., you in?”

   The black boy regarded the other two boys and closed his eyes for a moment. “Fine,” he said eventually. “If you’re determined to make fools of yourself, I might as well go look after you.”

   “Hell yeah!” said Chris, punching the air with the hand holding the book.

   “I’ll tell mom and dad you’re hanging out,” said Bill. “That should give you a few hours, then I’ll come clean if I have to. Will you call me from the road?”

   “A phone?” Ron asked nervously.

   “Ah,” said Bill knowingly, then took the notebook back from Chris and wrote a number on the back page. “Chris, call me every couple of hours okay?” The blond boy nodded importantly.

   “Can we go now?” Ron saw no point in beating about the bush. Chris was nodding, but Bill held up his hand.

   “Just one more thing,” he said. “And if I give it to you, you have to promise not to mention to anyone where we’re living now or anything at all when you get to the school.”

   Ron nodded. “Like I’d know anyway.”

   Bill smiled and reached into his back pocket again. This time what lay in his hands was a beautiful, foot long, polished magic wand.

   “I assume you know how to use one of these?”

 

***

 

   “I’m sorry,” said Draco Malfoy. “But explain that again please?”

   Severus Snape was firing every kind of protection spell imaginable against the door that lead from the old History of Magic classroom, normally to a perfectly normal corridor, but now it was somehow connected to the Hogwarts kitchens. And there were some seriously messed up people in there.

   “Fixers,” said Alex, pacing. “They’re called Fixers-”

   “Because they fix things?” asked Sarah Potter hopefully.

   Alex stopped pacing. “The word ‘fix’ has many different meanings.”

   Severus stepped back away from the door, that was now practically glowing with magic and was covered in chains, locks and barricades. “I think that’s all I can do for now,” said the potion master.

Alex shrugged as his little white puppy pawed at his jeans. “I have no idea what level they are, they could still maybe get through if they really wanted to. Them,” he said grimly. “Or others. There’s bound to be more lurking about the building.”

   “So what are they exactly?” asked Draco. “They didn’t look exactly human.”

   “Because they’re not,” said Alex happily, pointing his finger at Draco. “Ten points for Gryffindor. They just take on that shape because they’re near to you, they’re just smoke really, smoke with a bad attitude and too much ambition.”

   “But what does that _mean?”_ asked Draco. “Are they alive, will they hurt us?”

   Alex licked his lips. “Put simply, they are sentient clouds of DNA,” he said, which didn’t sound simple at all to Draco. “They feed off energy, they’ll suck you dry if they envelope you, leave you a dried out husk.”

   “The students,” said Severus in alarm. Draco couldn’t blame him – Hogwarts had essentially become a walking buffet.

   Alex nodded. “We should warn them.”

   “To what, hide?” said Sarah.

   Alex waved his head from shoulder to shoulder. “They should be held back by a repelling spell, or any defensive magic, they’re pretty weak in that respect.” He looked grim. “Until they touch you.”

   “I’ve got to be honest,” said Sarah. “My natural reaction would be to blast those things then run away.”

   “Still,” said Alex, leaping over to Severus. “You wizards are a curious bunch, always doing the opposite to what I’m expecting. Sevy,” he said seriously. “I am concerned none of the little mites do something stupid like talk to a Fixer or try to feed them. Could we maybe send a message out?”

   Severus nodded and conjured up a Patronus in the shape of a doe. “I will send word to the Headmaster and he can coordinate our efforts.”

   “And whilst you’re at it,” said Alex with a snap of his fingers. “Worn the tots that they might have to help with some magic. We need as much power as we can get to move the school back to your universe. And they’re _not_ to leave the grounds, in fact they should just stay put. We don’t want anyone halfway between the wrong rooms when you get sent back to your reality. That could get...” He grimaced. “Messy.”

   Severus stared intently at the Patronus for a few moments, then it disappeared through the wall.

   Draco shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “How are they switching the rooms about, and why?”

   Alex wiggled his fingers then began darting about the room, running his hands along the walls. “Um...okay, so Limbo isn’t a _real_ place, anything you see is just a construct from your mind. Hogwarts would have stayed looking like normal because together, that’s what all you lot would have been expecting, from your memories. So these Fixer creatures are taking the rooms you’ve pieced together, and rearranging them how they like.”

   “Why?” scowled Severus. “To what purpose?”

   Alex ran his hands through his highlighted hair. “Not sure,” he said, his eyes frantically scanning the room as if the walls might yield some clue or something. “They feed off of living things, fresh energy, so maybe...” he paled. “Maybe they’re herding you into one area.”

   Draco felt sick, but then Alex screwed up his face. “That’s not their style though, maybe it’s more to do with the rooms.” He stamped his foot, and Sir Woofsalot skittered over to Sarah. “It was bad enough you all fell in here!” he cried to the ceiling. “Getting you home was tricky enough! Why couldn’t you have landed somewhere peaceful!”

   Draco didn’t have an answer to that, but he had to agree. Things just kept getting worse and worse, when would it end?

   _“Attention Hogwarts,”_ came the sudden imposing voice of Albus Dumbledore. It was strange for Draco to hear his voice sounding so strong. He hadn’t even seen the Headmaster in his own world since Voldemort had infiltrated the school. It gave him a welcome flutter of confidence.

   Dumbledore went on to repeat the instructions from Alex and Severus, telling the students not to fear and to just follow his instructions. Draco was only half listening, having heard it all already. His attention was drawn out of the window again, where the landscape was still changing. The surrealist cracks in the skyline had developed into full blown grooves, black as pitch and, if Draco looked through squinted eyes, he was certain they were oozing.

   The dinosaur-like creatures had become bolder and were now playing on the grass that belonged to the Hogwarts grounds. Now they were closer Draco could see that some of them were actually being ridden by what looking like scaly people, commanding the creatures with long whips and blasts from horns.

   “Uh,” said Sarah, yanking Draco’s sleeve. He looked down at it, then her, then where she was pointing. “Uh!” she said again.

   “Alex?” said Draco in alarm, and Alex too spun round to see why the two students were looking at. There was smoke creeping under the crack between the door and the floor.

   “Oh no,” he cried, “not good, not good!”

   Sarah had had wand in her hand but she was shaking like a leaf. “Get behind me,” he murmured, not taking his eyes away from the door as a cloud began to shape. “I’ll look after you.”

   Sarah screwed up her face. “I can do it,” she insisted, but stepped a little closer to him all the same.

   “We need to start working on that spell!” cried Alex. “And as soon as you see anything with eyes, scorch it!” He was running his palms all along the blackboard in quick succession. “The eyes always come first – ow!” he cried suddenly, shaking his hand. “Hot.” He sucked his dusty fingers

   “What spell?” asked Severus, his wand trained on the growing cloud. Draco was itching to shoot at it but he had a feeling he should wait for the eyes to appear like Alex said.

   Alex turned to Severus. “I’m not actually a wizard,” he said with a touch of guilt. “I know a lot about the principles but a wand is useless in my hand. In theory though it should be a variation on the spells you use to retrieve people from wayward universes, or, like the one you were trying to perform, send you back where you belong.”

   Severus was nodding, his gaze still on the door. “The theory seems clear enough to me. If we could liaise I’m confident we could put together the correct spell.”

   Sarah picked up one of the bottles of potions in her free hand. “It seems like there’s still ingredients left over of pretty much everything,” she said, turning the bottle around in her hand. “Pickled Newts Eyes?” she read off of the label, then slammed it back down on the bench. “Ew.”

   Severus began scooping up the ingredients that had been knocked over or blown away when the window had shattered. He shook his head. “I’m missing a few things, and I need some extra assistance to stabilise the magic from Flitwick, probably McGonagall too.”

   “You could send your Patronus again,” Draco suggested. “They could coordinate from their rooms or wherever they are.” He turned to Alex. “I’m guessing it’s not a good idea for us to try and move?”

   Alex shook his head. “Not only would you be highly unlikely to get past those Fixers, but you wouldn’t actually have a clue where you were going, I would guess every room is being shifted and moved about.”

   “Eyes!” screeched Sarah, and instantly three wands fired. The cloud didn’t disperse though like Draco had been expecting, it just jerked upwards and to the right.

   “It’s still there,” said Draco almost with accusation.

   “But it knows we’re here,” answered Alex confidently. “And that we mean business.”

   Sir Woofsalot stepped towards the Fixer as it took shape, lifted a paw in the air and barked once. It wasn’t very intimidating, but Draco had to give him points for effort.

   “Fixers are lazy,” said Alex, routing through the bottles and tins with Severus. “It won’t try and eat you if you fire at it every time it comes near, it’ll give up. But you just have to keep reminding it that you’re a lunch box with fangs.”

   Draco’s heart was fluttering as the thing became man-shaped again, complete with cigarette in mouth. _“Expelliarmus!”_ he yelled at it, and it jerked away again, losing some of its shape and clarity.

   “Why won’t it go away?” asked Sarah panic in her voice. She was holding her wand in both her hands now.

   Alex straightened up from the bench. “Good question,” he said, and walked boldly over to the Fixer. “Oi, you!” he said in his proper English accent. “What do you want, you can’t eat them, they’ve got pointy-magic-fire-sticks!”

   The Fixer slowly turned its head, and smiled broadly at Alex, it’s dead, black eyes crinkling.

   “Did you feel that?” asked Sarah, alarm in her voice. Draco looked around.

   “Feel what?”

   The ground abruptly trembled. “That!” cried Sarah. Draco looked around at the floor, a queasiness creeping up through his insides.

   “Uh-oh,” said Alex, standing very still with his hands outstretched, like he was preparing to balance himself.

   “What,” said Draco through clenched teeth. “Does ‘uh-oh’ mean?”

   Alex scratched the top of his highlighted head. “I think it’s here to rearrange the room.”

   Draco snapped his head to see that the landscape was indeed changing, swinging to the right as he watched through the window. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the floor was tilting beneath their feet.

   “It’s changing the centre of gravity,” said Alex, alarmed. “Sevy, if there’s anything you don’t want smashed on that bench,” he warned with a nod to the ingredients. “You’d best do something about it.”

   Severus flicked his wand and everything that was spread across the table levitated up out of harm’s way.

   The Fixer continued smiling and walked unhindered to the centre of the room as the rest of them began stumbling backwards.

   Draco blasted the creature again, and it hoped to the side, fixed him with a glare, and snarled a very guttural sound. “Is it trying to tip us into him?” he asked.

   “No, said Alex. “Well, yes, that could be a side effect, but they’re not normally that cunning. I’d say it’s just moving it around for whatever reason they felt like moving the others around. Just make sure you stay as far away as possible from it.”

   The room was getting darker. Draco glanced to see the window was no longer facing the school grounds, but was slowly moving along some brickwork, until all of the outside had vanished from sight. “Lumos,” he said, lighting up the room with the small beam from his wand. Severus muttered something and lit the torches on the walls just as the sunlight vanished. The bright History classroom was now thrown into shadow, and the Fixer now looked like silvery mist in man form.

   The floor was tipping them gradually towards the wall with the door. “Woofsy,” called Alex to his puppy urgently, but with a pretext of calm. “Woofsy, good boy, come here.” Sir Woofsalot whimpered and looked a lot smaller than he had been looking, but obeyed and crept into Alex’s outstretched hand.

   “Everyone move towards the wall,” instructed Severus, edging by the door frame, coaxing his ingredients along above his head. The Fixer was ignoring them, it’s arms raised as the room carried on rotating, the window slowly edging into another room.

   Sarah scampered along and did likewise as the building creaked and shuddered around them. Dumbledore’s voice rang out again, urging everyone to remain calm. Was the whole school shifting about Draco wondered, like a rubik's cube?

   The room was at a forty five degree angle now, and Draco found himself leaning more and more on the wall that was becoming a floor. Sir Woofsalot scratched at the door from Alex’s hand, and barked.

   The Fixed gave a very low, very quiet laugh.

   Before Draco knew what was happening the room stopped gently turning – and flipped violently back on itself.

   Draco felt his stomach do a loop-the-loop as in the blink of an eye up became down. He couldn’t help but cry out as he twisted in the air and he, and the rest of the room, went crashing towards the wall with the window that was now the floor. He’d been near the corner opposite the blackboard with the tables, and was about to slam into several upturned chairs when he felt a spell stop him. It was only for a second, as then Severus hit the wall and lost his grip on Draco but managed to save the potion ingredients. He braced himself and smashed into the furniture, thankfully with little more than a few bumps that would undoubtedly become nasty bruises.

   Sarah landed beside the window frame of the stained glass window, that was once again shattered as a chair crashed through it into the new room that Draco couldn’t see into yet. Alex hit stone with a sickening crunch on Draco’s side of the wall, but he didn’t seem to feel any pain. They’d all missed the Fixer, by luck or design Draco wasn’t sure.

   “NO!” Alex yelled, rolling over in one fluid motion and flinging his arm out. Everything was happening so fast Draco took a second to understand what he was reaching for.

   Sir Woofsalot, the terrier puppy, had bounced from his grip, across the wall, and skidded over the edge, through the window. The classroom was still moving and there was only a small gap left between this room and wherever it now led to through the window. Draco felt himself scrabbling to his feet, his heart racing. But he wasn’t quick enough.

   Sarah was though. And it was all Draco could do to scream as she curled into a ball, and rolled on her side.

   Straight through the gap as it closed.

 

***

 

   Hermione Granger was struggling to keep up with a Harry who was not really Harry. He’d latched onto the idea that Professor McGonagall would be able to help them and was, literally, running with it. Hermione was trying to keep up as the four of them raced through the Hogwarts corridors, but she had her doppelganger’s stupid boots on and was lagging.

   Parvati seemed confident that McGonagall would have an explanation for why they were unable to reach anyone in Harry’s hometown, but Hermione wasn’t so sure. She’d kept her opinions to herself though.

   “Nearly there,” observed Terry as they rounded a corner.

   And straight into a girl.

   Harry crashed into her and the two stumbled backwards as Parvati, Terry and Hermione skidded to a halt behind them. The girl was mixed race, tall with long limbs and very short dark brown hair. She would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been for a dark, rose pink slash across her cheek, like she’d been caught by an artist’s brush. Actually, thought Hermione as she took this unfamiliar student in, the scar almost added to her looks, in an edgy sort of way.

   She brushed herself down and regarded Harry calmly. “Is there a fire Potter?” she asked. “Or are we playing kiss chase?”

   Harry scowled. “Oh get lost Zabini,” he said as he stalked past. “It’s a shock I know, but the world does not revolve around you.”

   The girl just smiled though, and Hermione realised with a shock that she did know her after all. “Blaise?” she said incredulously. How could this be the terrified, wallflower Blaise Zabini? It just didn’t make any sense.

   Blaise’s face became concerned when she realised Hermione had been standing at the back of the little group that were now marching past her. “Hermione,” she breathed. “Are you alright?” She turned and looked at the other three students walking away. “Anything...I can help with?”

   Hermione was so confused, were Blaise and her counterpart friends in this reality? Come to think of it she did vaguely remember Draco talking about her the past few days. “Um,” she said, flustered. “No, it’s fine, everything’s under control.”

   In a movement so fast it made Hermione jump, Blaise grabbed her wrist. It wasn’t threatening, just urgent. “Is this about Draco and Sarah,” she asked in a whisper. “Is there any news?”

   Hermione looked down the corridor where Harry and the others were surprisingly waiting for her. Then she remembered Harry needed her as ‘proof’ and wasn’t so touched. They’d been so insistent about the need for secrecy, and so angry at what she’d told Terry, it made her pause.

   “It’s complicated,” she said evasively. She didn’t know how to talk to the Blaise Zabini she knew, let alone this strange one. She didn’t know how to get out of the conversation. But she didn’t have to.

   Blaise had already let go of her wrist and was nodding. “Of course,” she said. Her voice was quiet but held a lot of strength behind it. “You’ll let me know the moment you know anything definite?”

   Hermione gave a shaky nod. “Sure thing.” Or maybe the other Hermione could let her know, when she herself was safely back in the right reality.

   “Come on Granger,” called out Harry. “We haven’t got all day.” Blaise ignored him, but gave Hermione a small, sympathetic smile, and carried on her way.

   Hermione hurried to catch up with the others, who had already began walking again. “Um,” she started, addressing no one in particular. “Are she and I friends then?”

   Harry shrugged, but Parvati looked smug. “They’ve been friends since birth,” she informed Hermione. “I always thought they were an item, perhaps you should check with your _boyfriend_ when he gets back.”

   Hermione felt herself bristle, and her kiss with Draco flashed across her mind unbidden. “He’s not _my_ boyfriend,” she muttered, but thankfully they arrived at McGonagall’s office so the matter was dropped. HarryM, DV M,.

 

   The plaque on the door read ‘Acting Headmistress’ instead of ‘Deputy’. Harry knocked hard three times, then stood back to wait for a response. “Come in,” came the professor’s voice through the wood, and Harry turned the handle and strode on in.

   Hermione found herself at the back of the group again as they filed in and the door was shut behind her. Harry and Parvati walked right up to the desk McGonagall was sitting behind, but Terry hung back a little with Hermione.

   “Mr Potter,” said McGonagall sombrely. “How can I be of help?”

   Harry, glance at Parvati. “I tried to contact my parents,” he said, cutting right to the chase. “But I couldn’t get through on the fireplace, or even to my neighbour’s house.” He licked his lips. “I think there might be something wrong.”

   McGonagall peered over her rectangular glasses. “Perhaps there was trouble with that fireplace,” she suggested. “Would you like to try mine?” She gestured to her own mantle, but Hermione found herself stepping forward. “It worked on another house,” she jumped in with. “In Devon, and I looked the powder over, it seemed fine.”

   McGonagall regarded her a moment, her lips pressed together. “Perhaps I should check the powder?” she said, holding out her hand. Harry quickly pulled his pouch out and the professor inspected the glittery contents with a raised eyebrow. “Yes,” she murmured after a minute. “That does indeed appear to be all in order. Impressive Miss Granger.”

   Hermione blushed, and remembered that the Hermione of this world had only found out she was a witch a year ago, and had only just started at Hogwarts. “Well, I just noted there wasn’t any mould, and it reacted in the normal way when I sent a charge through it with my wand. Draco told me how to do it...for when I talk to my parents,” she lied for good measure. She assumed that if McGonagall was fully aware of the alternate reality situation Harry would have said something at the start.

   “I’d like to try with your powder and your fireplace still though,” Harry said. Then added meekly; “If that’s okay Professor?” She nodded and he went through the motions of calling his house again, only to end up with another bump on his head. McGonagall frowned and got up from her chair to investigate.

   “Curious,” she said, running her hand across the back of the fire grate whilst Harry nursed his forehead. Hermione rubbed her own too; she still had a bit of a headache, and it was making her feel a bit queasy. That was probably all the adrenaline flying around her system though, she reasoned, and tried her best to forget about it.

   “We were hoping you’d know if the Ministry had put a cordon on the town or something?” she said to her Transfiguration teacher. McGonagall shook her head.

   “Nothing’s been sent through to me,” she said. “But I can send an owl to them, see if they know any more.” She turned and looked down at the smouldering flames again. “It certainly is unusual.” She sat back down at her desk and picked up a fresh piece of parchment that she began scribbling on immediately.

   “After everything,” said Harry, his voice sounding tight. “That’s happened with my sister, I’m worried. Is there any other way you can think to speak to them – I don’t want to send an owl or anything.” He jerked his chin at McGonagall’s half written note.

   She paused and looked up at the four of them. “I don’t supposed you have a Muggle phone installed do you?”

   Harry’s face lit up. “Yes!” he cried, and McGonagall smiled. She reached into one of the drawers in her desk and lifted out an old handset, the kind with a wheel for the numbers and a receiver that looked more like a bath tap.

   Harry reached for it eagerly, dialling a number off by heart and waiting expectantly. His face fell quickly though.

   “It’s dead,” he said, his voice croaky as he dropped the handset back down. McGonagall drummed her fingers on the base, then looked back down at her note.

   “The situation with your sister and Mr Malfoy is very serious,” she said, placing her quill down. “And it seems to me that your inability to contact your family is not a coincidence.” She folded her hands together, then stood up. “Under these circumstances I would be prepared to give you permission to leave the castle grounds and visit your family for an hour, to set your mind at rest.” She smiled. “I’m sure the communication situation is just a precaution we are unaware of.”

   Harry turned to Terry and Parvati, his eyebrows raised. “That sounds good to me,” he said with a nod.

   Parvati spluttered in shock. “What?” she said. “Why do we have to go, that should be an adult’s job.” She rounded on McGonagall. “Surely someone from the staff should go, or the Ministry?”

   McGonagall sat back down. “Miss Patel I quite agree,” she said. “However I cannot spare a single member of staff right now. The disappearance of two students has this school on high alert. And the Ministry will not send someone until they have cut through all that red tape they are so fond of.” She moved her attention to Harry. “Of course I am not telling you you should go, far from it. However I would like the option to be available to you to take a quick look around yourself.” She picked up her quill again and began writing. “I’m sure they are sat in their living room, worried about your sister as they have been all week and there is no foul play. A visit from their son might do them some good.”

   Harry nodded again, but Parvati snapped her jaw shut. “A word?” she said through her teeth. “In private?” She didn’t wait for a response, she just spun around and yanked the door to McGonagall’s office open. Harry followed as she stormed out, as did Terry. Hermione was in two minds as to whether she should stay or go, but Terry held the door open expectantly for her, so she joined them out in the corridor.

   “Are you out of your mind?” Parvati half hissed, half screeched the second the door clicked shut.

   “My family could be in trouble Parvati,” said Harry coldly, but instead of backing down, Parvati pointed enthusiastically at him.

   “Precisely,” she snarled. “And you want to go running into it? It’s not our responsibility!”

   “They’re my _family!”_ Harry shot back incredulously. “I would have thought you’d understand that!”

   Parvati sucked in a deep breath. “We are not qualified,” she said, her breathing heavy, her eyes shining. “I know you weren’t there, but this is exactly what happened when Pettigrew took your sister last year.”

   “And you got her back,” interjected Terry.

   “But Seamus _DIED!”_ Parvati’s voice cracked, and a single tear fell from her eye. Harry didn’t look as feisty as he had done a moment ago. “I watched him _die;_ we had no idea what we were doing and we walked headlong into a battle, a _war._ I am not doing it again.”

   Hermione stared at the other girl. She may have been nothing but hostile since the moment Hermione had arrived, but she couldn’t help but sympathise with her in that moment.

   “You’re right, said Harry with a nod. “No, I’m sorry, you’re right.”

   Terry gestured to the door. “But you heard what she said – it could be hours before someone can go check it out.”

   “Which is why I’m going by myself,” said Harry, and for a moment Hermione was reminded of her true best friend.

   “Not without me,” she said. “I’m the only one here who actually has an OWL in Defence Against The Dark Arts, and I’ve been with my Harry through thick and thin.” She turned to Parvati. “If I was you I’d stay here too though, it’s not fair on you to ask after everything you’ve been through.” Parvati actually managed a weak smile.

   Terry scoffed. “Well have fun by yourself,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I’m in with Ziggy.”

   Parvati looked at the three of them. Harry took a hold of her shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. But Parvati swiped his hands away.

   “Fine,” she said, her chin high and her eyes blinking furiously. “But I’m just going to make sure you come back in one piece.” She rested her hand on the door. “Somebody’s got to be the sensible one, haven’t they?”

 

***

 

   Harry Potter stared fixatedly at the blank and crumbling book spines, breathing in the lingering sent of wood smoke. This made no sense.

   He’d been having a nice, normal argument with Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall about his potions book and the Half-Blood Prince, and the next thing he knew he was apparently in Limbo with versions of his friends (and Malfoy) from Alternate Realities, and they couldn’t leave until their counterparts vacated their real bodies.

   He knew his life was generally pretty weird, but this was just a joke.

   The books weren’t much use, Harry had to admit, but it made him feel better looking at them. They all seemed to be written in faded, unintelligible dialects, and when Harry had asked the grouchy Librarian why he’d just waved his hand dismissively and said “You made this place, you obviously wanted answers, it’s not my fault you can’t read them.”

   Because they’d made this place so it seemed. Himself, Hermione, the American Ron and Malfoy, it had come from their minds. Harry sighed and wished his mind had thought to translate the original texts to English, because surprisingly enough he did not know ancient Mandarin.

   He was fairly deep within the stacks, having left the crowded central well an hour or so ago. No matter how far he walked the stacks would all fade into darkness at the end, only illuminating when he got closer. The smell of burning was getting stronger the further away he moved. He liked the quiet though, and could always make his way back any time he liked with a ‘Point Me’ spell. But their little library had gained some more inhabitants since their arrival and Harry hadn’t felt like entertaining.

   They’d met the French girl Marie when the Librarian had handed out ice lollies to them all, but not long after had come an old Chinese wizard who yelled at them all and waved his knobbly walking stick menacingly until the librarian had escorted him elsewhere. His grandson had cursed him apparently, for his inheritance. Then within ten minutes a Spanish sorceress had shown up with an equally fiery temper who had lost a bet with a demigod, and Harry had felt it best to move elsewhere for the benefit of his already fraying nerves.

   They were all from one of the four worlds; his, Malfoy’s, Hermione’s or Ron’s. The Librarian had said eventually wayward souls from other realities would start appearing, but for now Harry and the other three students were acting like anchors, guiding people from their own worlds to the corporeal library space.

   How many other worlds could there possibly be? Harry wondered after picking out a large green volume with strange illustrations of wizards juggling geese. The librarian had said their four worlds weren’t all that dissimilar; mainly single events had caused them to fracture off along different paths in their recent pasts. But surely that meant for every single eventuality, for every single yes and no, do or don’t there was a different universe. That was almost too big to comprehend.

   He wondered what the other Harry who had taken his place was like. His and Harry’s own worlds were the most similar out of the four according to the Librarian, but that didn’t really make him feel better about a stranger walking around in his body. He’d better be careful with it.

“Hello?” called a very faint voice, making Harry jump and almost drop the goose book. He stuffed it hastily back on the shelf and strained his ears.

   “Hello?” he called out uncertainly.

   Pause. “Where am I?” Harry exhaled. He hadn’t imagined it. It must be another lost person from one of their realities. He hoped this one, a man from the sounds of it, had a better temperament than the last two.

   Harry wasn’t sure how to answer his question, it was so complicated. “Follow my voice,” he yelled out. “There are others here, I’ll take you to them. Don’t worry,” he added, “we’re friendly.” Which, he thought stupidly afterwards, would be exactly what something who wanted to eat you would say.

   “I think I’m lost,” the man called, slightly louder.

   “No, you’re doing fine,” assured Harry. “Just keep walking towards me.”

   “No,” said the man. “I mean, I was just somewhere else...why can’t I remember?”

   Harry shrugged even though no one was there to see it. “I’m sure it’ll clear up soon, it takes a minute apparently.”

   “I need to get back,” said the man. “There was a battle, they need me.”

   Harry felt a stab of sympathy. Was he some sort of soldier? His voice was echoing around the stacks, but as he was getting closer it was getting clearer.

   “I’m sorry,” said Harry.

   “For what?” asked the man, and there was something familiar about it that Harry couldn’t place.

   “Um,” he said, frowning. “About the fight, that doesn’t sound fun.”

   The man laughed. “Fun’s never high on the agenda in my life,” he said. “Not dying is generally more of a priority.”

   Harry didn’t respond. His heart was pounding. He knew that voice.

   “How am I doing?” the man called, and Harry found his feet moving forwards, walking along the stacks in anticipation.

   “You’re nearly there,” he said, turning down another aisle.

   There was a weighted pause. “Harry?”

   He was running now, charging down the stack. He rounded the corner and froze. The man was standing there. He was younger looking than Harry remembered, healthier too. But it was definitely him.

   “Sirius?” he asked.

 

 


	4. Drive

Chapter Three -

   Drive

 

Sometimes, I feel the fear of

Uncertainty stinging clear

And I can't help but ask

Myself how much I'll let the fear

Take the wheel and steer

 

It's driven me before, and it seems to have a vague

Haunting mass appeal

But lately I, am beginning to find that I

Should be the one behind the wheel

 

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there

With open arms and open eyes, yeah

Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there

I'll be there

 

Incubus

 

   Sarah Potter wasn’t sure what had come over her. Everything around her had started to move very slowly, becoming crystal clear as she fell through the air. The room had tilted abruptly on its axis, flinging all the people in it towards the wall that was now the floor, and she’d braced herself for the landing just like her dad had taught her when she fell off her broomstick.

   But as she’d sailed past the smiling Fixer, still stood on the real floor in the centre of the room, she’d felt herself pull up, just in time to realise Professor Snape to her right had put a spell on her, Draco and Alex to slow them before their impact, as well as still levitating the potion ingredients.

   A chair crashed through the window as she hit the stone wall next to it with a thump that winded her, but didn’t break anything. Alex landed on the other side of the frame, and Draco slammed into a cluster of desks and chairs, a _‘whomph!’_ noise escaping his lungs.

   Sarah was able to take this in, as well as sneak a peek through the shattered window into what looked like a darkened bathroom, all as she rolled over to face the boys on her left.

   _“NO!”_ yelled Alex, a looked of horror on his face. He’d landed with his arm stretched out over the jagged window as it revolved over the bathroom, the gap slowly closing on Sarah’s side. The tiny puppy, Sir Woofsalot, bounced from his grip with a yelp, and tumbled through from one room to the next.

   Draco was scrabbling to his feet, but there was no time, no time to really think at all. Sarah just took a deep breath, tensed her body, and rolled.

   She heard Draco scream her name, but the window was already closing its gap, and she was too distracted by the shift in gravity she was suddenly faced with.

   As soon as she was through the bathroom’s window, the floor became down again, and she circled in a loop onto the tiles, smashing her shoulder and face into the ceramic.

   “Ow,” she said heavily, peeling herself off of the floor and wiping blood from her split lip. She looked back just in time to see Alex’s dismayed face disappear in the slit in the wall, replaced by shifting and grinding brick work.

   Panic threatened to rise up through her chest, but she squashed it down, and concentrated on how nice it was to have gravity behaving normally again, and no scary monsters threatening to suck all your life force from you, or whatever Alex said those guys in suits did.

   She spun on her knees and scanned the room, but Sir Woofsalot was nowhere in sight. The bathroom door was closed so he must be in there somewhere she reasoned, probably in one of the floor to ceiling cubicles. “Woofsy?” she called out, then whistled. “Woofsy, good boy, come here?” It was strange, she thought, as she crawled along looked in the cubicles, how people felt the need to talk to animals and small children in high pitched voices, but it didn’t stop her from doing it. “Woofsy? It’s okay, I’m here, come to Auntie Sarah.”

   There was a scratchy sound of nails on tiles, and slowly the little white head of Sir Woofsalot peeped out from the next cubicle up. Sarah breathed out in relief and scooped the trembling pup up in her arms.

   “Good boy,” she cooed. “It’s okay, you’re safe with me.”

   She looked around at the dark bathroom, and realised the only thing lighting it was the Lumos spell from her wand. It was daytime after all, with a window leading outside there wouldn’t have been any need to light the torches. She glanced at the window now, and realised the brickwork on the other side had stopped moving. It gave her a small sense of comfort as she lit the bracket nearest to her and Woofsy, knowing things were still, if only for a moment.

   “Hello?”

   Sarah almost dropped her wand, then froze, eyes darting around the bathroom. The cubicles were floor to ceiling, so she couldn’t see if anyone’s feet were in one of the ones further away.

   She backed up towards the bricked up window, then cursed herself realising the person was between her and the door anyway. She tried to keep quiet, even though she knew she’d already spoken. Her breathing was so loud anyway, and Sir Woofsalot began to growl.

   “Is someone there?” said the voice, a girl from the sounds of it. It was probably just a student, but in the dark and with the way her voice echoed around the room, Sarah couldn’t hold down her fear.

   A head of curly brown hair peeked out from the end cubicle, and Sarah suddenly felt very silly.

   _“Natalie,”_ she exhaled in relief, lowering her wand as her friend stepped out into the main room. “I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

   Natalie McDonald, one of Sarah’s best friends of the past few years, pulled at the sleeve of her top and chewed her lip. “The corridor’s gone,” she said in a strained voice. “It looked like the Charms classroom.”

   “Yeah,” said Sarah slowly, letting Sir Woofsalot down so he could go sniff Natalie’s trainers. “There’s a lot of that going on. You haven’t seen any creepy guys in suits with black eyes have you?”

   Natalie’s eyes widened. “No,” she said.

   “Good,” said Sarah, and actually managed to smile. “That’s an improvement.”

   “What was the Headmaster talking about?” asked Natalie. “What’s happening?”

   Sarah ran her tongue bar across her teeth. “It’s really, really complicated,” she said. “It’s probably best if we stay put. My friends are working on how to fix everything, it should all be back to normal soon.”

   This Natalie looked almost exactly the same as the one Sarah knew, she just didn’t recognise the clothes she was wearing. She had a kind round face, dotted with freckles and surrounded by a mass of auburn curls. She was taller than Sarah by an inch or two, and slightly broader.

   She looked at Sarah with an air of distrust though, as obviously she didn’t know her. Sarah didn’t exist in this world.

   “You’re that girl,” she said, folding her arms. “The one that’s been hanging around with Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy in the medical ward.”

   Sarah sensed a lot of questions were coming, so tried to act as natural as possible, considering she was in a Hogwarts from another dimension that was currently being rearranged in Limbo. “My name’s Sarah, and this here,” she said, picking Sir Woofsalot up again. He seemed to enjoy it. “Is Woofsy. We’re...sort of exchange students.”

   “From where?” Natalie was always quick off the mark, thought Sarah ruefully.

   “Norway,” she said, thinking of the first foreign magical school that popped into her head. “Oslo, their English is amazing, I never even had to learn any Norwegian.”

   Natalie licked her lips and let her eyes wonder around the room. “So your family moved here, and suddenly you’re friends with the most famous boy at the school and the guy that hates him the most?”

   Sarah tugged at her ponytail. She was pretty sure some more of her layers had worked their way loose, but there were probably more important things to worry about than her appearance right at that moment.

   “Like I said, complicated.”

   Natalie raised an eyebrow. “That door doesn’t lead to the fourth floor anymore,” she said. “It leads to a classroom. And you just show up when the school gets attacked, run off to the Ministry with Harry and his mates, and _Draco Malfoy,_ and now the rooms are in the wrong place and you’re talking about scary guys with black eyes.”

   Sarah considered that a moment. “Yep, that’s pretty much all of it,” she said tiredly.

   “No,” said Natalie, shaking her head. “No, that’s not good enough, that’s just even more confusing.”

   Sarah raised an eyebrow. “I did say complicated, right? If I could explain it all simply I would.”

   Natalie flicked her curls over her shoulder. “Can’t you try?”

   Sarah sighed. “Look,” she said patiently. “It’s for your own good, the less you know the better.”

   “I disagree,” said Natalie petulantly. “You could be a Death Eater, I have absolutely no reason to trust you.”

   “Then don’t,” flared Sarah. She wasn’t used to fighting with Natalie, it hardly ever happened and it was unnerving her. “We’re only going to sit in this bathroom anyway, if you’d rather do it in silence I don’t care.”

   “How, though,” she went on. “How are you friends with him?”

   Sarah blinked at her. “Who?” she asked. “Harry?” Natalie shrugged and folded her arms again. “There are rooms in the wrong place, and you’re worried about my relationship with Harry Potter?” Sarah made a tsking noise. “I know he’s famous here but-”

   Natalie jumped in. “Surely he’s famous in Norway too?” she asked incredulously. Sarah blinked. She’d meant this reality, but Norway made much more sense.

   “Do you _fancy_ him?” Sarah asked, disbelieving. Natalie had never said anything about a crush back home, had she been hiding it, or was it because Harry was ‘The Boy Who Lived’ here?

   She flung a hand out. “He’s _Harry Potter!_ Everybody wants to know him, or they pretend they don’t but they do. He’s so _mysterious.”_

   Sarah looked at her in mild disgust, and wanted to yell at her that that was her brother she was talking about, but she never got the chance.

   A smoky figure stepped out from the cubical behind Natalie, and grinned. She was a woman, dressed in a black pencil skirt, jacket and shoes, with a white blouse and wicked onyx eyes. _“Move!”_ screamed Sarah, and flung the first spell that came into her head at the Fixer.

   It jerked back as the red sparks hit it, and hissed like a cat. Natalie had pressed herself against the wall by the door, breathing heavily and staring at the creature’s eyes in horror.

   “Out the door,” shouted Sarah, edging herself around the Fixer. It had backed into the cubicle it had emerged from, and was gripping the sides as if preparing to fling itself forward at them like a catapult.

   Sir Woofsalot was by her feet, snarling as they crept across the bathroom. Natalie yanked the door open and stepped back in surprise. “It’s gone,” she stammered. “The classroom’s gone!”

   Sarah took her eyes off of the female-looking Fixer for a second to see that Natalie was right, the door did not lead to a classroom like she said it had before, but a short set of shadowy stairs with voices at the bottom that filled the air with an angry buzz like a swarm of bees.

   “It doesn’t matter,” Sarah said as the Fixer’s lip curled. “The rooms aren’t moving, go, now, in case they change their mind.”

   Natalie didn’t need telling twice, she pelted down the stone steps without a moment’s hesitation, leaving Sarah and Woofsy to back away from the Fixer towards the door. It was smiling like the last one had, in a way that never reached its eyes, full of malevolence. It took a step forward, as if testing what Sarah would do about it.

   Sarah screwed up her face and bellowed _“Expelliarmus!”_ knocking the creature back to the back of the cubicle. She spun and dashed for the door, making sure Sir Woofsalot was through before heaving it shut and locking it with an _“Colloportus.”_

   The door shuddered and Sarah tripped over her feet, stumbling down the half a dozen or so steps and crashing to the stone floor. Was she in a dungeon?

   The voices she’d heard before had stopped talking, and as she unstuck her face from the floor for the second time in ten minutes she realised why.   From the people looking down at her, and the decor on the walls, it was pretty easy to work out her and Natalie had found themselves in the Slytherin common room.  

   Sir Woofsalot yawned but Natalie looked even more scared than she had with the Fixer. She grabbed Sarah’s arm and all but hauled her to her feet. A girl with a black bob and a face like a pug pushed her way to the front of the crowd and looked the two girls up and down like they were covered in dirt.

   “Where did you come from?” she spat out.

   “Girl’s bathroom,” said Natalie, her eyes darting from student to student. “Fourth floor.”

   “It was the docks under the school when we looked,” challenged a boy Sarah thought might have been captain of the Quidditch team. “Then Dumbledore said the rooms were moving and to stay put.”

   Sarah shrugged. She could see why Draco had been so happy to get out of this house; the atmosphere was charged with hostility. “He was right,” she said as calmly as she could, her gaze flitting back towards the common room doorway. There was no smoke coming through the cracks yet, but she didn’t put it past the Fixer to work out how to get through in the next few minutes. “There’s some nasty things in the castle, they’re swapping the rooms about for whatever reason and trying to eat us.”

   _“Eat_ us?” squealed the girl with the bob.

   “What kind of creatures?” demanded the boy.

   “Hey,” said another boy, who looked more troll than person. Sarah was sure Draco had called him Goyle once.   “Ain’t you that girl who’s been running round after Malfoy?”

   Sarah bristled her shoulders. “Draco is my friend,” she said firmly. “And yes that’s me, my name is Sarah and this is Natalie-”

   “We know her,” interrupted the black haired girl, crossing her arms and jutting her chin out. “You however-”

   “Look,” interrupted Natalie right back. “She’s from Norway Pansy, that’s really not important.” She pointed towards the doorway. “One of those monsters is on the other side of that door, it’s why we came in here.”

   There were several cries of alarm, and the Quidditch boy pushed past Sarah and climbed the short set of stairs.

   “Can you see anything Marcus?” asked the girl that Natalie had called Pansy.

   There was a pause. “The door’s hot,” said the boy called Marcus. “And there’s smoke coming underneath.”

   Sarah whirled on her heels, terror exploding from her chest. “Get away!” she screeched. “Don’t let it touch you!”

   Her panic must have had some impact, as Marcus did exactly as he was told and stumbled down the stairs, backing away from the smoke along with the rest of the crowd.

   “What is it?” demanded Pansy as the crowd of Slytherins pulled their wands from their pockets. “How do we fight it?”

   “It’s called a Fixer,” said Sarah, blood pumping in her ears as the thing slowly started taking shape. “Just fire whatever you have at it, as long as it doesn’t touch you you’ll be okay, but you have to wait until you see its eyes or it won’t count.”

   “I don’t feel well.” Sarah, along with several others, turned to looked at Marcus the Quidditch player. He had become extraordinarily pale, his skin was grey and gaunt, and he was trembling.

   Sarah swore. The smoke had probably got all over him by the door. “Someone help him,” she barked, her attention turning back to the Fixer as its outline grew in clarity.

   “Is he going to be alright?” squeaked Pansy as a couple of boys steered Marcus into an armchair.

   “Yeah,” lied Sarah. She had absolutely no idea what a bit of exposure did to you, only that Alex had said they’d drain you dry if they could. “He just needs rest – _eyes!”_

   As the creature’s black eyes blinked into existence, she fired a Jelly-Legs curse at it. It didn’t make it dance, just knocked it back a foot or so.

   _“Drive it towards the door!”_ roared a tall, skinny brown haired girl Sarah didn’t know. The Slytherins let loose with a frightening volley of hexes and curses that Sarah had never even dreamed of. Brutal, dangerous spells soared across the common room, making the snarling Fixer stumble back up the stairs it had arrived from. Natalie joined in with the assault whole heartedly, but Sarah shrank back. She had no magic at her disposal to match theirs, and she was worried about Marcus.

   She darted over to him, and called his name, but he just stayed slumped against the back of the chair, looking remarkably dead. Hand trembling, Sarah reached over to take a pulse, and gasped with relief when she felt a fluttering under her fingertips.

   There was a chorus of cheers and Sarah assumed the Fixer had finally given up and dispersed back under the door. “Is it gone?” she called out, and was met with several cries of ‘yes!’ and ‘we-showed-it!’.

   A number of Slytherins had come back and were standing around Marcus with her. “Is he okay?” one girl in bunches asked.

   Sarah chewed her lip as people fawned over the boy. “What’s wrong with him?” asked Pansy.

   “We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey,” said Natalie, concerned.

   There was a lot of commotion coming from the Slytherins, and Sarah felt very young and inexperienced compared to them. Her fear was more powerful than her insecurities though, and it gave her a spurt of confidence.

   “We need to make that door more secure,” she said loudly. “Any of you that know any good protection spells need to set them up immediately to try and stop that Fixer getting back in.”

   The students nearest her mostly raised their eyebrows, until Pansy piped up. “Well?” she barked. “Look at Marcus, she’s right, get a move on before it makes anyone else sick!”

   A gaggle of older students hurried up the short flight of stairs and a kaleidoscope of colours lit up the entrance to the dungeon as they worked their magic. Sarah felt a little better straight away.

   “Okay,” she said shakily. “So we can’t move Marcus.”

   “Why not?” demanded Pansy. “He clearly needs help!”

   “I know,” countered Sarah, standing up to face the Slytherins. “But all the rooms are moving around, we’d never be able to get to the hospital wing other than by sheer chance, and those Fixers are everywhere.”

   “We can’t just wait around though,” argued the girl in pigtails. “He could be dying.”

   “Has anyone got medical training?” called out a prefect with an attempt at facial hair on his top lip. The students looked around each other mutely as Marcus breathed deeply in and out.

   “Blaise does,” said Pansy suddenly. “Is she in here?”

   Once more the students looked around, until a small voice squeaked from the corner; “Here.”

   Sarah frowned, until from behind one of the couches appeared a long haired, terrified looking Blaise Zabini. Sir Woofsalot scratched behind his ear at Sarah’s feet, and looked up at her.

   “I know,” she said quietly to him. “Weird right?”

   Blaise was practically pushed in front of Marcus, where her hair hung down in front of her like a curtain. “Um,” she said unsure.

   “Just do what you can,” said Sarah encouragingly, and Blaise knelt down to check his temperature and feel him pulse.

   Goyle had his arms folded as he stood guard by the little stairway, scowling at the door as if daring the Fixer to come back. Some of the students were helping Blaise as she murmured instructions on ways to help Marcus, but most of the Slytherins were just standing around on edge, wands in hands.

   “So you’re from Norway?” asked Pansy. Sarah noted she seemed unable to shake off that air of petulance no matter what she said. Did she exist back in her world? Sarah wondered. Draco might have mentioned her but she couldn’t remember.

   She managed a smile. “Yep,” she said. “What a rubbish time to move hey?” Pansy studied her some more.

   “You know,” she said as the tall, skinny brunette stood by her side. “You look an awful lot like Harry Potter.”

   Sarah’s insides turned to ice, but she was spared by Goyle and another boy equally as large shouting.

   “What the Hell is that!” cried Goyle as the other one began firing up at the doorway.

   “Another one of those things?” cried a small boy with glasses like the bottom of milk bottles.

   “No!” yelled the other brutish boy as he stumbled back into a table and sent a chess board (complete with pieces) flying, much to the annoyance of the pieces. “It’s huge!” The two of them ran back to join the retreating crowd of Slytherins firing all kinds of spells at the space where stairway met dungeon, but there was still a few seconds before Sarah could see there was anything going on.

   What emerged from the entranceway was like a slow moving flock of ghostly birds. Not birds really, but ghostly, smoky shapes moving as one whole out from the passage and into the common room. “Stay back!” ordered Sarah as the long tunnel of smoke travelled out from the stairway. “Don’t let it touch you.” The spells the Slytherins were shooting made the cloud mass jerk about, but did not stop it as it floated along over their heads.

   “What is it?” cried Natalie from Sarah’s side, but all she could do was shake her head.

   “It’s much bigger than the other ones,” she said, then jumped back in shock. A pair of wispy black eyes opened from within the cloud as it drifted past, and looked at her. Most people had stopped bothering to fire at it by this point, but the eyes bought on a fresh wave of equally ineffective attacks.

   “Is it a Fixer?” Sarah asked out loud, not expecting an answer, when a second pair of eyes opened further down. They weren’t as black as they were on the Fixers when they looked human, but Sarah couldn’t doubt that’s who they belonged to.

   “It’s like a shoal of them!” cried out the boy with the milk bottle glasses as the students flung themselves to the floor to keep well away from the smoke.

   Sarah felt her hand place over her mouth. Just what the hell was going on here?

 

***

 

   The radio was very loud. Christopher seemed to have an infinity for Muggle music with pulsating bass lines and serious guitar riffs. The current track was shouting about being ‘half way there’ and something about a ‘six string’, but Ron could feel his eye lids drooping none the less.

   He’d been on the road with Chris and the other Muggle A.J. for almost seven hours now. They’d swung in briefly to a building with a huge glowing yellow ‘M’ on the side and picked up an immense amount of chips and burgers (and onion rings, and chicken nuggets, and some drinks called ‘shakes’) but aside from that – and sopping once for fuel – they had not faltered from their quest to reach the American Magic school in Salem.

   Ron rubbed his eyes and stared out from his place on the back seat. There wasn’t much to look at other than fields of grass or corn. Sometimes they would pass signs to towns, but the most life they saw were other drivers, staring blankly ahead or singing along to the radio, unaware anyone could witness their performance.

   “Ron?”

   He jumped awkwardly in his seat, his head snapping to the empty seat beside him. Except it wasn’t empty. Seamus Finnigan was sitting in it.

   “Seamus?” cried Ron incredulously. He looked remarkably well. Like he’d lost weight, or put on muscle, and got a tan, and had a holiday. Ron blinked, had Seamus been here a minute ago?

   “You can hear me?” said Seamus, equally surprised as Ron had sounded.

   Ron fidgeted the baseball cap on his head up and down. “Yeah,” he said after a little consideration. “So?”

   “Ron,” said Seamus again, as if he couldn’t quite believe his luck that Ron had heard him. “This is really, really important, you have to listen carefully to everything I say.”

   “Who’s Seamus?”

   Ron felt himself jerk awake with a snort. He was still in Christopher’s vintage car, still in the back seat, with Chris still at the wheel and A.J. in the passenger seat. The forth seat in the back was empty.

   “Huh?” asked Ron, wiping drool from his mouth and swallowing the sleep aged taste of tomato sauce in his mouth.

   “You just said ‘Seamus’ really loudly,” said Chris, looking at Ron in his rear view mirror. “Were you dreaming?”

   Ron tugged irritably at the baseball cap, for real this time, and shrugged. “I guess,” he said. He looked at the seat beside him. It was funny that he’d conjured up Seamus Finnigan, why not Harry or Hermione? “How are we doing?”

   Chris grinned at him in the mirror. “Great,” he said, patting the dashboard. “Baby did us proud, we’re not far off now.”

   A.J. grunted and folding his arms, purposefully staring out of the window. Chris rolled his eyes.

   “No one made you come,” he said, turning up the music a notch as another track came on. A.J. huffed and flicked it down again considerably.

“And what do you expect to find when we get ‘there’,” he asked. “The yellow brick road?”

   Ron pulled out his brother Bill’s notebook and thumbed through until he found the right page. He’d had little else to do in the past few hours other than commit all he could from the book to memory. “Bill says,” he said defensively. “That it’s a gateway. The school is unplotable, so Muggles can’t find it, but the gate should be pretty obvious enough.”

   A.J. didn’t say anything, in fact he didn’t even look at Ron, he just stared at Chris, then slumped back in his seat and stared determinedly out onto the road again. Chris asked what ‘unplotable’ meant and how it worked, and Ron spent the next half hour explaining the magical theory. He was pretty sure A.J. fell asleep.

   Salem, Massachusetts, was a calm, pleasant town Ron felt on a first impression. There were lots of leafy trees and big houses finished with horizontal wooden slates painted white, red or blue, with big shuttered windows spaced out evenly. The roads were wider than in England, as were the pavements, and Ron spotted a lot of small businesses, town signs, and even a school with witches on the logos. It made him feel uncomfortable.

   Bill had given them rather specific instructions on how to find the academy, and A.J woke up as the boys were driving around the town, searching for landmarks. They turned left at the Spooky Sundaes Ice Cream Parlour, did a full circle around the fountain outside the public library, a three point turn beside a statue of a man with a crow on his shoulder (who Ron was sure had winked at him) then eventually made their way through the old cemetery as twilight began to creep along the sky.

   Ron was feeling more and more like they were being lead on a wild goose chase as Chris consulted his map and gently steered the car to a halt. They were on a long, straight road with a dense forest on their left and fields of grass on the right. On the edge of the road by the grass stood a lonely structure; a stone archway with a huge double wooden door. But seeing as there was no wall either side of it, Ron couldn’t really see the point in its being there. Chris manoeuvred the old car to a rest by the trees and killed the engine.

   “So this is it,” he said happily, looking around at Ron.

   Ron turned his head in every direction, and felt the fear and anger gnaw at him. “There’s nothing here,” he said grouchily. “Nothing but that stupid archway.”

   Chris blinked. A.J. shifted in his seat, and scanned the road. “What archway?” he said. Ron was really getting sick of his negative attitude now, and yanked the door of the car open.

   “That archway,” he cried, jabbing his finger at the stone structure. The air was muggy outside, and he pulled the hat off his head to get a breeze through his hair. Instantly he felt better, like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and without another thought threw the cap on the back seat and left it there. He rolled his shoulders, and clicked his neck.

   Chris and A.J. got out too, and both the American boys looked around. “All I see is grass dude?” said Chris, swinging his keys around on his finger.   Ron frowned, and walked across the tarmac to the wooden doors.

   “You don’t see these?” he asked, resting hand the warm wood.

   A.J. raised an eyebrow at Chris. “What?”

   Ron stepped backwards and took in the gateway with renewed interest. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, I think this might be it!”

   He pushed and pulled at the doors but they did nothing. Now he was giving the proper attention he could see there was an old etching in the wood, a round seal about two thirds of the way up with a large bird spreading its wings. He tried knocking on the doors, then prodded them with an _‘Alohomora’_ spell using Bill’s old wand, but there was no sign of life.

   “What can you see?” asked Chris, walking over to Ron’s side.

   Ron pushed on the wood again, and described the archway. It was probably designed for Muggles to ignore, and that’s why he was the only one who could see it. “Try and touch it,” he suggested, showing Chris where to put his hand. The blond boy reached up and met the wood, then jumped back in shock.

   “What’s there?” demanded A.J., stomping up to join them.

   Ron shrugged. His anger at the other boy’s negativity seemed to have evaporated. “Try it,” he said, moving away to see if there was anything by the sides of the archways.

   He tentatively put his hand out, but met an invisible barrier where he would have expected a wall. He was suddenly irrationally happy. They may have been stuck, but he was certain they had found the entrance to the Salem Academy of Magic.

   “Whoa” cried A.J. in genuine shock as he felt for himself the invisible doors. His eyes flicked to Ron, then he stepped closer and put both hands on the archway.

   Chris tilted his whole body over so he was standing on one leg then twisted his head. “Yeah,” he said, squinting. “Yeah, I think I can sort of see it.”

   “What in the name of Hell do y’all think you’re doin’?” came a loud voice from behind them. The three boys spun around to see a girl about their age emerging from the woods. Her curly blond hair shimmered in the sunlight and Ron thought her accent was even stronger than the ones he’d heard so far. “This here’s private property and none of your damn business!”

   She stomped up to them, hands on hips, with a large heavy looking duffle bag over her shoulder. Her outfit looked like some sort of uniform, what there was of it. She was sporting a short purple skirt and matching sleeveless top, with black and silver piping around the edges. The word ‘Fireflies’ was emblazoned across her chest. A great deal of her bronze skin was on display, and Ron could see the muscle definition even from across the road.

   “I ain’t playing, y’all better scoot before you get in big trouble.” She came to a halt in front of Ron and he looked to the others for support.

   “We don’t want any trouble,” said A.J. quickly and Chris nodded.

   “No – no trouble!”

   “We just want to get into the school,” said Ron, who had decided a direct approach would be the best. “We need some help.”

   The girl went to take her hands off her hips then thought about it. She pursed her lips.

   “What school?” she said after a moment.

   “The Salem Academy of Magic,” said Ron quickly. “We just want some help, honestly.” But the girl shook her head defiantly.

   “Uh uh, there ain’t no school here.”

   “Well what are you doing here then?” asked Chris. She looked between them and folded her arms.

   “I’m...I’m just...” she tapped her trainer on the ground. “Catchin’ a bus,” she finished, quite pleased with herself.

   “Where’s the bus stop?” said A.J. and the girl scowled at him.

   “It’s down the road, dumb ass.”

   Ron threw up his hands. “Seriously, we’ve been driving for hours, we know this is the school and we just need to talk to somebody.”

   “About what?” the girl snapped.

   “About the fact I’ve just travelled from another reality where I’m a wizard and I go to school at Hogwarts, but now I’m here in a different body in a different country living like a Muggle and I’m tired and confused and I just want somebody to help me get back home with a spell or a potion or maybe even a Dimensional Hotspot – at this point I’m really not fussy which.”

   Ron took a deep breath as the blond girl stared. “Say what?” she said, her hands dropping from her hips and her big bag shrugging in one movement from her shoulder to the grass. She had a rather curvy figure that Ron had a hard time taking his eyes off, and now she was in front of him he could see her tanned skin was dotted on her arms and thighs with livid purple bruises.

   “I’m a wizard,” said Ron, as he was very sure this girl was a witch. “I accidently came from an alternate reality – it seems to be happening quite a bit to my friends over the last year but it’s the first time it’s happened to me. So now I want to ask one of the teachers here to help me,” he jerked a finger at the closed gates. He explained how his family here had abandoned their magic lives because of You-Know-Who, so rather than going to his own school he’d had to find his way here.

   “With our help!” added Chris cheerfully. “We’re Muddles.”

   “Muggles,” corrected the girl, then looked very cross at herself and folded her arms. “Okay,” she said, nodding her head. “That’s a lot of information you just gave me. How about we start with the part where you’re a wizard.”

   Ron looked at her, and blinked. “Yes,” he said.

   She inclined her head. “I was sort of hopin’ you’d prove it to me, do a spell or somethin’.” Ron felt embarrassed and pulled Bill’s wand out again.

   “Oh, yeah,” he said, “of course.” He flicked the wand about and produced a little flock of birds like Hermione had shown him a few weeks ago. Chris whooped in admiration and thumped Ron on the back. A.J. just stepped closer, peering at the wand, and then Ron’s pockets like he might have secretly been stashing a dozen white doves in there all along.

   “How did you do that?” he asked. His tone was less laced with malice as it had been for the past few hours; perhaps being met with an invisible door had changed his mind somewhat.

   “Never you mind,” said the blonde girl sternly, then turned to Ron. “What are they doin’ here anyhow? You don’t go runnin’ round showin’ Muggles your magic back in England do you?”

   “We’re here to help,” argued Chris stubbornly.

   The girl raised an eyebrow. “How exactly?”

   Chris pointed at his car smugly. “Well I drove, didn’t I.”

   Ron rubbed his hand through his hair. It was all hot where it had been stuffed under that cap, and the light breeze felt nice on his scalp. “I don’t know anyone else,” he said, almost a little pitifully. “In fact I don’t know anyone, my family are like strangers.”

   “Because of you bein’ from an alternate universe an’ all?” clarified the girl, folding her arms.

   “Yeah,” said Ron with a shrug. “I know it sounds nuts, but it’s the truth and they wanted to help so I let them.”

   The girl flicked her hair back and looked at the two American boys. “I suppose,” she said in that thick accent. “But I can’t let ‘em inside, I can’t even promise they won’t get their memories wiped – that’s up to the Bureau.”

   A.J. held up a finger. “No one,” he growled. “Is wiping my memory, do you understand?”

   The girl looked like she was ready to explain to A.J. exactly how the Bureau – which Ron assumed was the American Ministry – could wipe his entire memory if they so felt like it, but she was interrupted by a silvery racoon flying up to the big double doors and passing straight through them to land by the four teenagers’ feet. Chris and A.J. jumped back in shock, but Ron was used to being greeted by Patronuses. The girl looked instantly sheepish.

   “Abigail Preston!” cried the racoon in a woman’s voice. “Just what do you think you are doing practicing magic outside of school grounds?” The racoon looked about, taking the three boys in. “And whilst we are on the subject, why are you outside of school grounds, and who on Earth are these people with you?” The woman’s voice rang out clearly against the still warm air on the road. The girl, Abigail, looked slightly horror struck from the Patronus to the three boys.

   “It weren’t me Madam Crabapple! This here boy says he’s a wizard landed from England and I was makin’ him prove it! Then he started talkin’ bout other dimensions or somethin’ and I weren’t sure what to do.” She threw them a shifty look and spoke behind her hand in a not too quiet whisper. “Plus I thought they might be spies so I was pretendin’ like there weren’t no school.”

   The racoon sat up on her hind legs and took in the three boys. “You are wizards?” she asked.

   “Just me,” piped up Ron. “I uh...” he looked at Chris, who gave him a thumbs up. “I need some help.”

   The ghostly racoon scratched its ear. “With what son?” the woman, Madam Crabapple, asked.

   “Getting home,” said Ron simply. He felt like an idiot, but he decided he didn’t have time for formalities. “Abigail is right, I’ve accidently come from a parallel universe – I know it sounds crazy, but I honestly come from a reality where I live in England and I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But – long story short – I ended up in this realty where my family are living like Muggles so I was hoping someone here could help with a spell.”

   The Patronus racoon rubbed its paws together. “Another reality?” Madam Crabapple asked.

   “Yes,” said Ron, encouraged. “We’ve had quite a lot of trouble with this lately, me and my mates. There are definitely ways to get back because it’s been done before, I just...” he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Can’t remember the magic. My bother Bill said someone here might be able to help.”

   The racoon nodded in a very human-like way. “What’s your name son?”

   “Ron,” he told her. “Ron...Nicholls.” But the racoon smiled, and that was definitely a human gesture.

   “Ron Weasley you mean.” Ron looked around at the group, horror creeping up his insides. He’d promised Bill faithfully he would do everything to protect their identity, but the racoon waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it,” said Madam Crabapple. “I remember your family very well, we were sorry not to have you enrol but I assure you they will be perfectly safe.”

   Ron swallowed. “So you believe me then.”

   The racoon smiled again. “Yes son,” she said. “It’s actually not that surprising to me.”

   “You were expecting some British dude from another reality?” asked Abigail, shifting her weight from one hip to the other.

   “Not exactly,” said Madame Crabapple patiently. “I think it best that everyone come inside and we can discuss this further. Abigail, would you escort them to my office?”

   “But,” spluttered Abigail. “Those ones are Muggles, and I got practice and-!” However one look from the Patronus and she became quite.

   “Now Miss Preston, if you please?”

   “Yes ma’am,” said Abigail, scuffing her toe on the grass. The racoon nodded, satisfied, and disappeared as quickly as it had come.

   Abigail threw a dirty look at the boys and hoisted her bag back onto her shoulder. “I hope you appreciate my coach is gonna tear me a new one for being late.” She stormed up to the gate and pressed her palm to the wood. Slowly it creaked open, swinging its doors backwards.

   “How’d you do that?” cried Ron indignant. He was sure he’d pushed a great deal harder than she had.

   “Like I’m gonna tell you,” she replied with one eyebrow raised.

   They trudged up along a long gravelled pathway, their feet crunching on the little white stones as they inclined up a gradual slope.

   “Why would they wipe our memories?” asked A.J. eventually.

   Ron turned round to look at him. He was trailing behind Chris, who was following Ron and Abigail out in front. He shrugged. “Because Muggles aren’t supposed to know about magic, it’s safer for everybody.”

   “That’s not fair,” said Chris.

“Yeah,” scoffed Abigail. “It ain’t fair Muggles run around building pyres the first hint they get of a witch, either that or enslavin’ them, makin’ ‘em do spells an’ stuff.”

   “Then why on _Earth,”_ said A.J. catching them up. “Would you build your so-called ‘magic’ school in the witch capital of the world?” He used air-quotes when he said the word magic, making Ron think he still didn’t really believe them.

   Abigail blew a raspberry. “As if any witches ever got burnt, bunch of attention seekin’ pranksters. An’ if you wanted to find real witches, would you start in this tourist trap? That’s be like lookin’ for talkin’ mice in Orlando.”

   Ron didn’t really understand what she meant about the mice, but it made sense about the school. It was clever to hide it in plain sight. Harry had said something about that to Hermione when he’d told them about You-Know-Who’s layer in Germany.

“Fact is,” she continued. “No Muggles are allowed in, heck they normally can’t even find the road it’s on – standard with any magical structure.” She shifted her heavy looking bag and kicked a white stone with her white trainer. “But if Madam Crabapple thinks you should come in then that’s what’s gonna happen. Let’s just keep it quick so I can catch the tail end of trainin’.”

   Gradually buildings started to appear in the distance that got larger and larger, and a low buzz of noise seemed to accompany them. They eventually arrived at another set of gates, but this one had an actual wall running alongside it, about three metres high so they couldn’t see over it but the building roofs were still visible.

   Once again the girl Abigail put her hand onto the wood; this time Ron noticed a sort of glowing coming from beneath her palm before the doors swung open, and the noise went from a buzz to full blown din. The path continued up ahead of them, and either side of it were buildings two or three stories high. They were all white with wooden shutters and porches, and in between them grew luscious green grass. Each building had several of the mailboxes on sticks planted crookedly outside, and some of the porches had legless benches on swings, or big rocking chairs.

   Everywhere Ron looked there were students. Running from building to building, hanging out of windows chatting, sitting in clusters eating sweets. Owls flew above their heads as a group of boys threw an orange disk between them, hollering friendly abuse at one another. Even though evening was creeping in there was still heat left over from the day, and Ron could understand why they were all hanging around outside.

   Beautiful trees with fat trunks and leaves bigger than Ron’s hands waved merrily in the passing zephyrs in a welcoming sort of way. There were even students hanging from the branches, or resting under their cool shade.

   “They’re all wearing the same thing,” said Chris as children of all ages made their way around them whilst they walked through. Some turned their heads to look but most carried on with their own business. And he was right; they all had cloaks fastened with large silver buckles, shorter than the Hogwarts ones, and they fell over their shoulders rather than behind their backs. Everyone wore black trousers or skirts, hob-nailed boots, short pointy hats that were far more rigid looking than the Hogwarts dress ones and a good deal shorter too.

   “Uniform,” said Abigail. “Like a private school. We like to do things old-fashioned here. Those buildings there are the dorms, and the school house is a touch further up.”

   “A witch boarding school,” breathed Chris, turning around as he walked to take it all in.

   “And wizards,” pointed out Ron as several younger boys came pelting past, slowing just long enough to gawp at the new comers before carrying on in their pursuit.

   A small Chinese-looking girl in the same purple uniform as Abigail’s came running up to her.

   “Abbey! Abbey!” She came to a halt and caught her breath. “You coming to practice – I thought I was late!” Abbey turned and looked at the three boys who had also come to a stop behind her. She handed over her bag to the other girl.

   “I’m gonna be _real_ late. Would you mind takin’ my stuff an’ I’ll be with y’all when I can?” The other girl couldn’t hold the heavy bag quite as easily as Abbey, but she was more interested in eyeing up the new comers.

   “Sure thing,” she said distractedly. “I’ll see if I can stall for you.” She ran off and the group started walking once again.

   Chris looked at A.J. then jogged up to fall in pace with Abbey. “So...you’re a cheerleader right, a _witch_ cheerleader?” She turned and looked him up and down then folded her arms.

   “Yeah, and we got a big game this weekend for which I will now look like a total ass.”

   “A witch cheerleader,” said Chris again, turning to look back at the other two boys. “I think I’m gonna like it here.”

 

***

 

   Draco Malfoy scrabbled at the brickwork as the gap in the window closed. _“SARAH!”_ he bellowed, but the space between two rooms slid shut, sealing the fisher that Sarah Potter and Sir Woofsalot had fallen through. “No!” he yelled, pounding at the brickwork that was now grinding across the other side of the window in the floor. Alex rocked back on his heels, then tipped all the way over to crash seated on the floor, his hand on his mouth, tears glistening in his eyes.

   “I am,” he whispered, staring at the bricks as they scraped across. “So sorry,”

   “No,” said Severus Snape, pulling himself to his feet, the potion ingredients still suspended above his head. He looked sick and was nodding to himself repeatedly. “Sarah will be fine. She is a sensible girl and she will look after your pet until they both return to us.” He swallowed. “She’ll be fine. She has to be.”

   “But the Fixers,” said Alex weakly.

   Draco’s head snapped up, and he felt a lurch in his stomach as he realised the creature who had been standing in what was normally the centre of the old History of Magic classroom had disappeared. “It’s gone,” he said, awkwardly getting to his feet, feeling all the bruises he’d just managed to get himself by landing on a pile of tables and chairs.

   Alex’s head whipped around, and he jumped to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

   “Okay what?” asked Draco.

   “Okay he’s gone,” said Alex, saluting at the place where the Fixer had just stood grinning at them. “Okay you are correct. Okay, he did not go out of the window otherwise we would have seen, so therefore he must have gone back out of the door and thus not followed Sarah and Woofsy. Okay?”

   Draco nodded. “Okay,” he agreed. “That all sounds good.”

   “Why did it move the rooms?” asked Severus, resting his bottles and phials on the wall that now substituted as their floor.

   Alex rubbed his highlighted hair, blinked away his tears and did a couple of tap steps on the stonework. “I’ve got an idea, just a little one.” He licked his finger and held it up like he was trying to determine what direction the wind was blowing. “Interesting.” He walked towards the blackboard he’d been inspecting before and pressed his palms to it again. Draco noticed the bricks outside the window had been replaced by an empty corridor, and the room had stopped rotating.

   “What?” he asked. He was so worried about Sarah his stomach felt like a pit of writhing snakes. “What’s interesting, and does it help Sarah?”

   Alex grabbed one of the scattered chairs, flipped it upright and stood on it so he could reach further up the sideways blackboard. “Lots of things,” he said with his back to Draco. “And honestly, I’m not sure. But it’s always better to understand what’s going on around you than not.”

   Severus stood up from the floor, his shoulders tense and his gaze cold. “I have warned you,” he said softly to Alex as he reached up on his tiptoes. “About dancing around the subject. A little girl has just thrown herself into an unknown and potentially dangerous situation in order to help your _pet.”_ He spat the last word out. “I would think you’d present yourself with a little more urgency.”

   “And _I_ warned you Sevy,” said Alex pleasantly as he bushed the chalk from his hands and jumped down from the chair. “To chillax. All this negative thinking will get you nowhere.”

   Severus glowered.

   “Fine,” said Alex, throwing his chalky hands up. “You think I don’t care about Miss Potter, you are gravely mistaken. I just have faith in her ability to look after herself. I am not wallowing on our misfortune, I am trying to turn it around.” He flung a finger at the door Severus had covered in enchantments to keep the Fixers out. “There is a flow of energy now steadily passing from that door, through that window, into that corridor. You wanted to know why the Fixers were moving the rooms; that’s why. If they can create a strong enough river of energy, a super-stream of Feng Shui, they have the potential to ride that energy.”

   “Where?” asked Draco.

   Alex raised his eyebrows. “Where do you think? To the magical land where all the tasty real-live people come from. To the all-you-can-eat buffet.”

   “Oh...” said Draco. “No, no that’s not good.”

   “Tell me about it,” replied Alex.

   Severus began popping corks and mixing ingredients into the little caldron. His cheeks had gone a little flush after Alex’s telling off, but he was apparently choosing to ignore it. “We need to un-catastrophe this mess, right now.”

   “But what about Sarah?” asked Draco to Alex, then turned to Severus. “And you said you needed help with the spell.”

   Severus swirled his Patronus from his wand again. “I will contact the professors immediately.”

   “And as long as Sarah doesn’t move, she should be okay,” said Alex, jumping back up on the chair and scribbling calculations on the blackboard with a scrap of chalk he’d found lying around.

   “But what if she does?” pressed Draco. “And what if she gets caught up in the wave of Fixers or whatever you said?”

   “There are three hundred and eighteen students at this school,” said Alex, his hand whizzing over the board. “Nineteen staff members, a hundred and fifty two house elves and four hundred and seven cats, toads, owls, grindylows, newts, bunny rabbits and so on. Every single one of them is at risk from those Fixers, not just Sarah. We have to mobilise the populous and get the Hell out of Dodge, otherwise you shall all be in for it, as will the universe I have sworn to protect.”

   Draco felt abashed. Of course there was more at stake than just Sarah, he knew that. But he’d sworn to protect _her_ and so far he was doing a really lousy job of it.

   “How can I help?” he asked in a small voice.

   Severus clicked his fingers. “Come and measure out these flack wood shavings for me please,” he said, his eyes not moving from the caldron he was stirring. “And try not to sneeze.”

   A silvery cat bounded through the wall and came to a stop beside the potions master, its transparent tail swishing. “Everything is ready Severus,” Professor McGonagall’s voice said from the cat’s mouth. “We shall wait for your signal.” The cat then vanished as quickly as it had arrived, leaving Severus to just nod as he concentrated on his ingredients.

Alex had apparently exhausted his calculations on the blackboard, and after staring at them for several minutes he hopped back off of his chair and came to sit cross-legged by Draco’s side. He rested his chin on his hand and watched Severus work for a minute. “I hope they’re okay,” he said after a short while. His eyes stared listlessly in front of him.

   Draco felt his stomach knot up. “She’ll be fine,” said Severus stubbornly. “She’s a bright girl, just like her mother.”

   “Hmm,” said Alex scratching his nose.

   Draco felt useless. He’d sorted out the wood shavings and siphoned off some liquid silver, but he wasn’t able to do much else to speed the spell along.

   “Drat,” said Severus looking around at the litter of ingredients of the floor. “We’re out of tender root.” He turned and stared out of the window into the corridor, considering. _“Accio tender root,”_ he said eventually, pointing his wand towards the hallway.

   “Will that work?” asked Draco. He didn’t doubt the professor’s ability, it was more the fact there were walls everywhere that were normally in different places.

   “We’ll see,” murmured Severus. The three of them waited silently for a few minutes, until finally a tin box came flying around the corner and soared through the window into Severus’ waiting hand.

   “Wonderful,” said Alex, drumming his hands on his knees. Severus opened the tin box and broke off several roots from the ones with bigger parts, stirring them one by one into the mixture.

   “It’s nearly ready,” he said to no one in particular.

   Draco was gazing down into the corridor, frowning. It was looking a little foggy.

   “Uh, guys,” he said, getting to his feet. “I think we may have a problem.”

   Alex jumped up too and walked over to peer down the broken window into the hallway. “Oh Hell’s bells,” he griped, darting backwards and tapping Draco on the arm. “I’d get your wand out, sharpish,” he said as Draco did as he was told, his heart thumping.

   “What is it?” asked Severus, who had still not taken his eyes from the potion in the little caldron.

   “A mild weather problem,” said Alex as the smoke began to swirl into several separate shapes. “How close is that spell to being done?”

   “It’s finished,” Severus informed him tersely, rising to his feet and pushing his greasy hair from his eyes. “It needs to settle.”

   Draco looked from the forming Fixers, to the tiny pot of potion on the floor. “Is that going to get the whole school home again?” he asked sceptically. “There’s not much of it.”

   Snape dispassionately aimed his wand at the nearest Fixer, and as soon as eyes appeared on it he fired the thing back to the end of the corridor. “Irrelevant,” he said matter-of-factly. “The quantity is not important if we have enough energy going into the spell.”

   The Fixers were all taking human form now and were stalking upwards, a manic, hungry look in their black and soulless eyes. Draco’s insides squirmed as he and Severus blasted spells at them, but they just kept picking themselves up and walking towards them again and again.

   “Why are they massing on us!” cried Draco, taking an involuntary step backwards as one reached out for the jagged edge of the window frame. Alex picked up the nearest chair and hurled it at the gaggle, causing the smiling Fixers to disperse a little.

   “The summoning spell I guess,” he grunted. “They’re following it. Go away!” he shouted as another Fixer, this one female in a black pencil skirt, reached the room’s threshold.

   “We need to do the spell,” said Draco, his heart thumping. “We need to get out of here.”

   Severus pointed his wand at his throat. _“Sonorus,”_ he said, turning his voice into a tannoy system. _“Attention students of Hogwarts,”_ he boomed, his voice magically echoing around the room. _“This is Professor Snape. I am going to ask you to follow my next instructions_ precisely. _If you are in any doubt about what I am about to ask of you, please_ refrain _from taking part.”_

   “I really hope,” muttered Draco to no one in particular. “That the students at this school are a little more switched on than the ones at mine.”

   “My kids can do it!” cried Alex affectionately. “If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about British school children over the millennia,” he said, hurling another chair through the advancing monsters. “Is that they love a good opportunity to stick it to the man.”

   Draco wasn’t sure what that saying meant, but he was running out of spells he knew to aim at the Fixers. It seemed they were learning, so if you hit them with the same one twice it didn’t really work.

   Severus had begun chanting, leaving time for the populous of Hogwarts to repeat after him like they’d been instructed. The potion had taken on a faint golden glow that made Draco’s heart leap. “It’s working,” he cried at Alex excitedly, but his face fell as soon as he saw one of the Fixers was managing to clamber up through the jagged edge of the window. Alex was all that stood between it and Professor Snape, and he threw a board duster right through its head.

   “Back you villain!” he yelled at it theatrically, but it just grinned and kept on climbing. Severus’ eyes flicked to it, and he took a step backwards from the caldron before announcing the next line of the incantation. Draco tried shooting a Bogey Hex at it, but it barely disrupted the Fixer’s smoky outline at all.

   “We have to stop it!” Draco shouted.

   Alex rolled his eyes at him. “You think?” he demanded in his RP accent.   He swung his leg at the creature as it heaved itself from the window, but his pirate boot went right through its head.

   “Do you _want_ to get killed?!” screamed Draco as another female Fixer popped her grinning head above the parapet by her comrade.

   “A)” said Alex. “Already dead, no life force to suck. And B) it doesn’t want me anyway, it wants the oldest, most powerful living thing in the room.”

   Severus didn’t show any reaction to this, but Draco’s eyes widened. They were going after the professor? Well he was just going to have to give them something tastier. “Hey!” he yelled, taking a couple of steps towards the broken window and waving his hands. The two Fixers, the furthest of which was almost all the way out despite Alex’s best efforts, snapped their heads around to looks at Draco.

   “Yeah that’s it!” he encouraged, lighting up his wand. “Look how tasty I am!”

   “Draco no!” barked Alex in horror.

   Draco backed up a step as the Fixers changed their direction towards him, and Alex ran around to position himself in between them and Draco.

   Draco danced about though, waving his lit up wand above his head. “Cooee!” he called. “Come and get it whilst it’s hot!”

   “Draco I am serious,” growled Alex, reaching out to heave an entire table at the two Fixers as a third one emerged. This managed to disperse them a little, giving Draco some time.

   “Severus has to save the school,” he implored to Alex. “The universe!” Alex screwed up his face.

   “I know but you have to save the _multiverse!_ You are far too precious to get eaten by this lot of greedy chops!”

   Draco remembered another spell Hermione had taught him, a full body binder and he sent it soaring towards the three Fixers now in the room. _“Patrificus Totalus!”_ he yelled, and watched with a tiny amount of relief as they were blasted back towards the wall that would normally have been the ceiling. “How about,” he said, panting. “Neither of us gets eaten, sound good?”

   “Sublime,” shouted Alex as the Fixers shook their heads and decided to go back to trying to reach the human being who was not attacking them. But there was a sudden, deep creaking noise that rumbled through the school.

   “It’s done,” rasped Severus, back in his normal, quiet voice. The potion in the caldron was blazing now, like a pot on molten lava. Draco, looked around the room in trepidation, and the Fixers inhaled deeply, holding their breath and screwing up their eyes, before evaporating into nothingness.

   “Sevy you beauty!” Alex bust out, punching the air. He spun around and seized Draco’s hand in a vice like grip. “It’s working, you’re going home.”

   “Everyone?” Draco asked, thinking of Sarah.

   “I will get her home,” said Severus to him as he started to fade. Draco blinked, panic rising in him. “I promise you Mr Malfoy, I will get her and the others all safely where they belong.”

   Alex squeezed Draco’s hand, which considering how tight he had it Draco didn’t think was possible. “Anything belonging in Limbo will stay here, unless I’m holding onto it for dear life.” He held up their entwined hands and grinned. “Everyone else will pop back in Scotland, rooms all back in place-”

   His face suddenly dropped in fear, and turned back to the fading Severus. “Sevy warn them!” he cried. “Don’t move, stay put!”

   Snape’s wand was at his throat, his voice magically resonating through the school again, before Alex even finished speaking.

   _“It is imperative students do not move between rooms, I repeat...”_

But his voice was disappearing and the classroom was turning black in front of Draco’s eyes.

   “Here we go,” whispered Alex, almost vibrating in anticipation, as the world tumbled away, and Draco found himself flying blindly through the depths of Limbo. Where exactly he would land, he had no idea at all.

 

***

 

   Professor McGonagall seemed thoroughly relieved that Hermione and the others had come back into her office to Floo to Harry’s parents. “If you have the slightest trouble,” she said, handing out the glittery powder to Hermione, Harry, Parvati and Terry. “I want you to return immediately, do you understand?” Everyone nodded, except Parvati who tutted in disapproval instead.

   “I’m sure everything’s fine,” said Hermione through her best fake smile. “We’ll probably be back in five minutes.”

   McGonagall seemed to reconsider letting them go. After all, Parvati was right, this was adults’ work and if there really was something wrong the students would definitely not have the training to deal with it. Except for Hermione of course, but this McGonagall didn’t know she was as capable as she was.

   Harry made the decision for them though, by spinning around, chucking the Floo powder into the fire and stepping in with a cry of “Godric’s Hollow.” He’d become obsessed with the idea his family was in danger, and Hermione couldn’t really blame him for wanting to see them.

   He disappeared and the professor sighed. “I wasn’t sure that would work, after you couldn’t talk to them,” she said. “Off you go then, I guess. Please at least try and keep your wits about you.” Parvati was already in the grate, whirling away. Terry extended his arm towards the flames.

   “Ladies first,” he said with a smile. Hermione smiled and tried not to be nervous as she stepped up to the mantle and threw her handful of powder in.

   “Godric’s Hollow,” she said clearly, and instantly she began spinning in a whirlwind of tickling flames and glimpses of other fireplaces. Without warning, she bumped into something solid, throwing her a kilter and making her spin in the opposite direction. She cried out, her hands reaching automatically out in fear, and as soon as it had happened she was sprawled out on a cold stone floor. “Urgh,” she said into the slab. Hands grabbed under her arm, and as she blinked Harry heaved her up.

   “What happened?” she asked, rubbing her stinging face. The two of them and Parvati were in a dark kitchen-diner, the window was obscured by dingy net curtains and several, overcrowded and thirsty looking plant pots on the sill. Wedgewood plates were hung on all the walls, covered in a thick layer of dust, with patterns of blue flowers painted on. The carpet in the dining area was brown and threadbare, and the set of table and chairs looked in need of a good polish. A cabinet stood by a door made of a wooden framework and glass panels the colour of burnt caramel. Hermione couldn’t quite see into the cabinet, but it seemed to be rattling every now and again.

   “I don’t know,” said Harry tersely, letting go of Hermione’s arm as Parvati backed fearfully into him. “This isn’t my house.”

   There was a commotion from the fireplace, and Terry hopped lithely from the coals as they flared to life then died again, having done their job and delivered their passenger into this otherwise derelict kitchen. He brushed the knees of his jeans and looked about. “Ziggy this is not your house.”

   Harry looked for a moment like a might lose his temper, but instead closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I know that, _Terry.”_ He said his name pointedly, and Hermione found herself wondering about Terry’s nickname for Harry. He didn’t seem to like it. “I think we bounced off of Godric’s Hollow like when we tried to talk to my parents.”

   “We should go back,” whispered Parvati. “It might not be safe in here.”

   Hermione looked around the sad, old kitchen and tried to remember what she’d read about the Floo network. “I think,” she said slowly. “That this would be the next closest house, we might not be too far away.”

   Harry nodded and moved to the door that lead to the rest of the house. “Let’s go find out.” Parvati looked appalled, but Terry grinned and jumped to follow Harry through into the corridor.

   Hermione shrugged. “Come on,” she said as kindly as she could to Parvati, and the two girls walked out of the kitchen-diner.

   “Mildred!” squawked a voice from a room to their left, and the party of teenagers stopped in their tracks. “Mildred is that you?” It was definitely an old woman that was croaking at them, and Hermione suddenly felt guilty, like she was a burglar.

   Harry looked like he felt the same. “Hello?” he called out cautiously.

   “Mildred get in here,” barked the old woman, followed by a spate of coughing. “Where you been you miserable old trout.” This was followed by a phlegmy laugh that didn’t sound much better than the coughing.

   Terry shook his head and pointed to the front door. “Let’s just go,” he whispered, and Parvati nodded in agreement, but Harry shook his head.

   “We might have scared her.” Hermione had to admit the woman didn’t sound very scared, she sounded cantankerous, but she didn’t want to be rude so joined Harry in popping their heads around the door. They were met by a living room covered in the same Wedgewood china as the kitchen and several high-backed armchairs, in the furthest of which sat a shrivelled elderly lady, grinning toothless gums at them.

   “Mildred,” she cackled, waving a grotty, lacy handkerchief at the pair. “I knew it was you, you been hiding from your auntie, you scallywag.”

   “I’m sorry,” said Hermione, hearing a sigh behind her that indicated Terry and Parvati had joined her and Harry after all. She walked into the living room, the swirling orange and green carpet thin and gritty under her shoes. “We accidently came through your fireplace, we didn’t mean to disturb you.”

   The old woman peered at Hermione. Her robes were lacy and mouldy green. Hermione couldn’t help but wonder if they had always been that colour. “Mildred,” berated the woman. “Didn’t you get all skinny! You not been eating your auntie’s pies?”

   Hermione felt her stomach flip at the idea of eating anything at all that had passed through this house. She was starting to think Terry had the right idea that they should have made their escape whilst they’d had their chance. She started backing up towards the others.

   “We’re really sorry to have bothered you,” she said. “I’m sure Mildred will be by soon to see you.”

   “Not if she’s got any sense she won’t,” muttered Terry as Hermione ushered them from the lounge and towards the front door. Parvati grabbed the handle, yanked it open, and the four of them spilled outside, sucking in the fresh air which seemed heavenly after the stale, slightly putrid atmosphere of the woman’s house.

   “Blimey,” exclaimed Terry with a laugh. “That was unpleasant.”

   “Oh she’s just a lonely old lady,” said Hermione, rubbing her pounding temple. Why wouldn’t this headache go away? It was making it hard to think.

   They were standing in a little front garden in the middle of a long row of terraced houses. The grass resembled something you might find in the African jungle, and there was a rusting bike poking out from underneath it.

   “I think I know this street,” said Harry, peering down at the nearest end where a pub called the Dog and Partridge stood. A smile broke out on his face, Mildred and her auntie all forgotten. “This is Hathaway Heath, it’s the town over from mine. There’s a bus we can take.”

   He headed off down the short path with Parvati by his side, but Terry looked appalled. “Bus?” he repeated.

   Harry stopped and turned back to look at him. “Yeah, you know, big thing, lots of wheels, carries people where they need to go.”

   “More commonly known as a peasant wagon,” said Terry with a smile but his tone suggested genuine abhorrence. “Let’s see what other options we have.”

   “Terry, we don’t have time,” began Hermione.

   “Exactly,” he interrupted, and strode off down the path. “It’ll take too long to find and wait for this supposed bus, and then it will travel at a snail’s pace before breaking down, as that’s what they inevitably do.”

   Hermione thought he was being a tad overdramatic, and was about to say so but he piped up again. “Plus, I don’t have any Muggle change on me, do you?” They had to admit they didn’t.

   “So what, fly?” demanded Harry as Terry got his wand out. He was looking at the car crammed into the parking space at the end of the driveway in a way Hermione didn’t like.

   “I would merely suggest a little ingenuity.” And he slipped his wand in between the car window and its door.

   “Terry Boot!” hissed Hermione, stomping out onto the pavement. “Are you _stealing_ that old lady’s car?”

   The door popped open with a click, and Terry shook his head disapprovingly. “Not stealing, _borrowing._ With the full intention of giving back. Besides,” he waved his wand up the garden path. “Do you think Bats-in-the-Belfry will be missing it anytime soon?”

   Hermione chewed her lip as Harry and Parvati slipped into the back seat. “Come on Granger,” said Harry good-naturedly. “Terry’s right, we’ll give it back, this is an emergency.”

   With that, Hermione couldn’t argue. So, looking up and down the long road, she swallowed her guilt and opened the door to the passenger seat.

   Terry had the good grace not to crow, and dove down under the steering wheel instead. Hermione groaned. “Are you hot-wiring it?” she asked, knowing full well what the answer was already. Where did he even learn how to do that?

   “We can’t use magic, can we?” argued Terry as Harry agreed in the backseat. Parvati seemed to just be ignoring everything that was happening around her, staring out of the stationary car and fiddling with the butterfly at the end of her plated hair.

   “We haven’t got a choice,” said Harry simply. Hermione couldn’t help but feel the two boys were just enjoying their petty larceny a little too much. The engine roared to life, and her headache getting the better of her, Hermione just sat back and let the crime unfold around her.

   The drive didn’t take long with Harry directing, maybe half an hour of B-roads, but it felt like an age to Hermione.

   Hermione didn’t get travel sick. She knew this from the many hours she had spent reading in the back of the car whilst her parents drove them on holidays all across Europe. But no matter how many times she told herself this over the last twenty minutes, she could not put a stop to the sensation that last night’s dinner was imminently going to come back up and say hello.

   “Can’t you close the window?” Parvati asked for the third time. “It’s messing up my hair.”

   “No,” snapped Hermione, gulping down another breath of warm midday air. It was this damn headache, she was sure, it was making her more sensitive to the motion sickness. Parvati huffed and retaliated by winding her own window down and lighting a cigarette. Hermione swooned and clamped her hand over her mouth.

   “Parvati,” scolded Terry, looking at her in the rear view mirror. They were travelling down a lengthy single carriageway and seemed to be the only car there, so Hermione wasn’t too unsettled he took his eyes from the road. “I know I stole this car, but I don’t think that old lady would appreciate...”

   But he trailed off, his eyes moving back towards the steering wheel in disbelief. “Why are you slowing down?” asked Harry alarmed.

   Terry shook his head. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m not doing anything.” He stamped on the peddles and changed gear, but despite his best efforts the car slowly died in the middle of the road.

   “Did it run out of petrol?” asked Parvati, but Hermione barely heard her. There was a rushing noise in her ears, and she swung open the door, stumbling onto the grass verge that stood between the road and the shadowy woodland that the carriageway ran through. She held her knees and sucked in deep, slow lungfulls, concentrating on not vomiting, and not passing out.

   “Hermione are you alright?”

   Her head snapped up. Seamus Finnigan was standing at the edge of the forest.

   “What?” she spluttered. “But, you’re dead?”

   Seamus was waving his hands. “I know, it’s complicated, but I need to talk to you.”

   “Hermione?” cried Terry, and she turned to see he’d got out of the car too and was leaning on the roof of the driver’s side. “You feeling okay?”

   “Yeah,” she nodded, “I mean no, I-” She turned back to face Seamus, but he had vanished. She blinked, then gave up and sat on the grass, her head hung between her legs as she tried to push the dizziness from her mind. She just needed to stop her head spinning, she needed something to eat, that’s why she’d imagined Seamus.

   Terry walked over and crouched beside her. “Headache,” she mumbled. “Car made it worse, thought I might be sick.”

   He grimaced. “Lovely,” he said, and rubbed her back.

   “Look,” said Parvati, pointing down the road. About ten meters along there was another car precariously parked, and then another one a little way away from that. “Do you think the same thing happened to them?” asked Harry. Parvati shivered.

   “This isn’t right,” she whined. “We should go back.”

   Terry shook his head and marched back up to the car, throwing himself back into the driver’s seat and tried to start the engine again, but all it did was splutter and growl into silence. “Deader than disco,” he announced, stepping back out on to the road. “There’s definitely something freaky happening here, looks like the other cars were abandoned too.”

   “Oh don’t say that,” moaned Parvati with a shiver as she looked around. There were rain clouds in the sky, hurrying above the woodland on fretful winds.

   Hermione slowly inhaled once again. She was feeling less sick now but her head was still pounding, maybe she was dehydrated? “How far to your house Harry?” she asked.

   He considered. “By foot?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well the town kind of starts at the end of this road, which is about five minutes I’d guess, then to actually get to mine maybe another fifteen?”

   “Twenty minutes walking?” spluttered Parvati. “I’m wearing heals, I can’t do that! No one said anything about walking.”

   Terry looked around. “Would you rather stay here in the woods with the ownerless cars?”

   Parvati hugged herself and considered her surroundings. “Not really,” she admitted and Terry locked the car with a flourish.

“Excellent,” he said. “Let’s go then.” He began heading down the road, humming _‘These Boots Were Made For Walking’_ a little louder than was probably necessary.

   Hermione heard Parvati huff. “Oh fine then,” she cried, and stomped up to join him.

   “It’s really not that far,” Harry told her nicely as he and Hermione began walking too, but all she did was keep scowling ahead.

   “What would make the car cut out like that?” wondered Terry aloud.

   “No idea,” replied Harry as they passed another car on one side of the road, and a motorbike on the other. They were both facing the direction of the town. Hermione shook her head and fell back into line with the group.

   “For everything to stop dead like that it would probably take a massive amount of power.”

   “Like a power cut?” asked Parvati, which made Terry scoff.

   “How would a power cut stop the cars?”

   “I was only trying to help!” she cried. “You don’t need to be so mean.” It looked like she was getting a bit tearful and Hermione actually felt sorry for her. It would probably have been best to leave her behind at the school.

   “Oh come on all it takes is some common sense,” retorted Terry.

   “Enough!” said Harry. “Hermione, what would make the cars stop, what kind of power?”

   She couldn’t be certain, but she thought that might have been the first time Harry had used her first name since she’d arrived. She stopped walking. “Magic,” she said. “Lots of magic.”

Harry looked uncertain. “There are a lot of magic families who live here,” he said. “But it’s not a magic town like Hogsmead or anything.”

   “Well it could be a number of things magic related,” explained Hermione as she started walking again. “A variety of spells could produce the kind of effect we’re-”

   She stopped dead in her tracks as something freezing plummeted in her stomach.

   The trees had moved. Something was in there. She took a step towards them. “Seamus?” she whispered.

   Terry looked were she was looking, then clapped her shoulder. “It’s just the wind,” he said calmly. “Come on, Parvati doesn’t need any more encouragement.”

   Hermione stared at the spot where the branches had rustled. It was so dark she couldn’t really see more than a few feet into the foliage, but from what she could see there was nothing. She shook herself.

   “Yeah...you’re probably right.” She hoped Terry hadn’t heard her say Seamus’ name; it was massively insensitive of her and she was feeling foolish now.

   They carried on in silence a while, eventually coming to the end of the carriageway. A small roundabout divided the road into three different routes. To the left was another long road past a lake which looked to have a large industrial estate on the other side, to the right there was a sign indicating it went to a motorway, and the final path lead straight on. It was this way the party walked. There were cars littered all over the place, none of them with any drivers.

   Gradually as they went down a hill, odd rows of houses started appearing in clusters of threes and fours. They were old fashioned, more like cottages, and not one of them had any sign of life about them. No radios playing, no one hanging any washing out, no dogs barking. The only sound was the four students footsteps and the rustling of the leaves in the forest around them.

   The road evened off and they came more into the village proper. Other roads started leading off the main one, and there were rows of shops, hairdressers and veterinary practices. Not one sound. Not one moving car. Not one person.

   “You should have told us you live in the village of the damned Ziggy,” Terry piped up, breaking the silence. “I would have bought a shotgun – now I feel rude.”

   “Don’t joke,” said Parvati, her arms wrapped around herself.

   “This is wrong, this is so wrong,” muttered Harry as they passed by a darkened pub. Somewhere in the distance a dog howled making them jump. “Come on,” he urged tersely.

   They rounded a corner into a little town square with a monument at its centre, and several roads leading off. And there, standing across the way from them, was a solitary figure. “Look!” hissed Hermione as Terry grabbed her to stop her walking.

   The man was stood very still in the middle of the road. He was too far away to tell if he’d registered their presence or not, but at any rate he didn’t move. “Should we go talk to him?” whispered Parvati as they all stared uncertainly. Thunder rumbled across the gloomy grey sky, and Hermione shuddered.

   Harry clenched his jaw. “I’m not sure,” whispered back. “I don’t recognise him, why’s he just standing there?”

   “Maybe he’s lost, like us?” suggested Hermione. “Maybe he’s wondering why we’re just standing over here?” She wasn’t sure though.

   Suddenly the man moaned. It was the kind of moan a cow might make if you were trying to wake it up from a particularly good dream; deep, mournful and slightly too loud for the amount of silence they’d been used to.

   “Why’d he do that?” cried Parvati as quietly as she could, taking a step backwards. “Do you think he’s alright?”

   Terry frowned. “I think possibly,” he said carefully, “he is not alright.” The man raised his arms and groped the air, as if someone was dangling something just out of his reach. He began to shuffle forward, and moaned again. Hermione felt that icy shard shoot down her guts again.

   “Maybe we should go another way?” she suggested through slightly trembling lips. Harry nodded and turned round, the rest of them did likewise. And stopped.

   Coming down the hill they had just walked was a line of people, about four or five deep, spread out all across the road. They were stumbling slowly with their arms outstretched, just like the man in the square. They were getting close enough to hear their moaning, and more people were joining them from the houses and shops.

   Hermione tore her horrified gaze away and looked back over at the man the other side of them. Now he was closer she could see his eyes were totally white, and there was a kind of electricity about him, blue lightning that crackled over his body and made his hair whip about, as if he was caught in a storm.

   She looked back at the slowly advancing crowd; they all had the electricity flashing through them sporadically, jumping from one body to the next. Somewhere near the front of the pack came a particularly blood curdling moan.

   Hermione turned her head to see a panic stricken Parvati, then to the boys who were both equally aghast. Terry licked his lips.

   “Er,” he said. “Run?”

 

***

 

   Sarah Potter crouched by the armchair the sick boy Marcus was slumped in, watching the slow moving swarm of Fixers sail through the Slytherin common room and out through the door that normally lead to the girls’ dorms. Now it seemed to lead to one of Professor Sprout’s Herbology greenhouses.

Marcus groaned and Blaise Zabini took his pulse again. “He needs proper help,” she whispered to Sarah. Sarah nodded. But what could they do? They couldn’t risk moving him, they’d never find the medical wing and the chances were a Fixer would find them first. If they hadn’t all been in that cloud that had gone past. What _was_ that?

   _“Attention students of Hogwarts.”_ Sarah all but jumped out of her skin. The entire Slytherin collective jerked their heads up.

   “Professor Snape?” said the girl with the pig-tails, along with several others. It went around like a chorus. “Snape!” – “That’s Snape!”

   As if to prove them right, the booming voice carried on: _“This is Professor Snape. I am going to ask you to follow my next instructions_ precisely. _If you are in any doubt about what I am about to ask of you, please_ refrain _from taking part.”_

   Sarah allowed herself a little thrill of hope. Had Draco and the others finished the spell already? Were they getting out of Limbo? It wasn’t a moment too soon as far as she was concerned, what with that cloud floating about and what it had done to Marcus.

   _“Our school is, once again, under attack,”_ Snape carried on grimly. Sarah couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. If her and Draco had never crossed over, they would never have been attacked once, let alone twice. _“We have been shifted into another plane of existence, and this is what has enabled the creatures you may have encountered to rearrange the rooms of the school._

_“I will repeat the Headmaster’s words with utmost urgency: the creatures known as Fixers_ MUST NOT _be approached by students. This is for your personal safety.”_

   There were several groans and mutterings at this, and people all over the common room looked apprehensively at Marcus. Sarah looked back towards the girls’ dorms; had that cloud gone or would it be coming back? Hurry up, Professor, she urged silently.

   _“I will be instructing you on the verbal part of the incantation. A potion has already been completed and several charms are being put into action as I speak.”_

   “We have to do a spell to put Hogwarts back together?” chirped a panicky first year, but he was shushed by several older students as Snape told them to repeat after him.

   Blaise leant over to Sarah, brown eyes wide. “Should I do what Professor Snape says?” she asked. “Or carry on with Marcus?”

   “Marcus,” replied Sarah without thinking. “There must be something else we can do for him?”

   Blaise bit her lip as the students started repeating Snape’s words, before snatching up her satchel and rummaging through her books. “No,” she muttered, flicking through one book then casting it aside in favour of another. “No, no – ah.” She pointed her wand at the sickly boy and he seemed to quieten a little. Sarah looked around at all the Slytherins, joined by her Gryffindor friend Natalie, concentrating on performing the spell. Occasionally Snape would give them a wand movement to do as well as the words, but most seemed to know what was expected of them anyway.

   It was overwhelming how much better at magic they were compared to the students of her own world, let alone Sarah herself. It wasn’t that her mum hadn’t tried, but with working full time and Sarah wanting to spend more time on a broom rather than with a quill in her hand it wasn’t much of a wonder she was so far behind.

   Sir Woofsalot scratched at Sarah’s leg. “What?” she whispered to him as he wagged his tail at her, and then she gasped. She could see right through him.

   “No,” she whispered, desperate not to disturb the reciting students. “No, what’s happening? Woofsy?”

   But the puppy didn’t look distressed, in fact he gave a little happy bark as Sarah reached out for him. She was startled to find she could still feel him, and scooped him up in her arms. He reached up and put his paws on her chest, then gave her face a little lick.

   “No don’t leave me,” she pleaded as quietly as she could, but suddenly he lost all solidness, and dropped gently to the stone floor. He gave her one more wag of his tail, then vanished from sight.

   Sarah choked back a sob. “What happened to your dog?” asked Blaise.

   Sarah shook her head, trying to clear it. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

   “Is that it?” asked Pansy, the girl with the black bob. The students were looking around, no longer chanting. A resounding creaking noise filtered through the walls.

   Sarah jumped to her feet like she had a fire lit under her. “It worked,” she cried. “That’s why he – he – we must have left Limbo!”

   Professor Snape’s voice burst to life again with sincere urgency. _“It is imperative students do not move between rooms, I repeat students must remain where they are for their safety and well-being.”_

   Sarah couldn’t help it though, she bolted from Marcus and Blaise, across the common room and up the half dozen stairs to the door. She pressed her ear against the cooling wood, and listened.

   “Well?” shouted up the boy who looked like a troll.

   Sarah wiggled her fingers and considered. They must be back home, otherwise Sir Woofsalot wouldn’t have disappeared. But were the rooms still moving back into place?

   She closed her eyes and counted backwards from twenty, ignoring the Slytherins shouting up at her. As she got to five she felt someone heading towards her, so she gave up, opened her eyes and reached for the door handle, stopping Pansy where she stood.

   “Go on!” she hissed, and Sarah took a deep breath.

   “Five,” she counted quietly out loud. “Four. Three. Two...”

   “Do it!” barked Pansy.

   Sarah yanked the dungeon door. “One!” There was a normal stone corridor outside. She turned to Pansy and flattened herself against the wall so she could see past her. “It’s supposed to look like that, yeah?”

   Pansy didn’t reply, she just let out a scream of delight and ran back downstairs.

   “It’s okay!” she yelled. “It’s back to normal!”

   There were cheers and cries of happiness as Sarah ran back after her. The Slytherins were pumping fists in the air and hugging each other. All except skinny, meek Blaise Zabini who had managed to get Marcus the Quidditch captain out of his seat and propped up on her shoulder.

   “Let her through!” shouted Sarah, marched towards the pair and throwing herself under Marcus’ other arm. People suddenly remembered he was there and how ill he was, and jumped out of their way immediately. Sarah was almost a foot shorter than Blaise, so they didn’t make a very good pair, but they managed to shuffle the poor boy along well enough.

   “We’ll take him to medical,” Sarah told the Slytherins, hoping they’d listen to her. “You should stay here in case those monsters are still around.” Or something worse, she added to herself.

   Natalie took one look around at the people she was standing by, and quickly moved to Sarah’s side to help move Marcus too. “I’ll – err – help,” she said with a nod as she got under his arm. She was a little taller so matched up with Blaise’s side more evenly, so Sarah moved aside to get the door for them. “Nice seeing you all!” Natalie called to the Slytherins, then heaved Marcus up the stairs with gusto.

   Sarah wasn’t sure how long the other students really would stay put, but she genuinely was concerned for their safety as the door closed behind her and the other two holding up Marcus.

   “We can’t carry him all the way to medical,” said Natalie practically, letting her and Sarah’s side sag a little. “It’s too far, he needs help right now.”

   “What do you suggest instead?” Sarah asked, not seeing many other options.

   Natalie jigged around awkwardly, until she was able to pull her wand out. “Accio broomsticks!” she cried loudly, and Sarah looked at her incredulously. Natalie shrugged.

   “I saw Harry Potter do it once,” she admitted sheepishly. Blaise nodded and re-heaved Marcus up into a better grip. Sarah shook her head. She didn’t really see how Marcus was going to fly a broom any better than he was going to walk, but she soon understood what Natalie was hoping to do.

   Five shabby looking brooms eventually came around the corner, and Natalie positioned them about a foot and a half apart.

   “Not bad,” said Sarah appraisingly as they gently lowered the Quidditch captain onto their make-shift stretcher. Marcus groaned again and twitched unnervingly, but the girls were able to space the brooms out evenly enough to distribute his weight so they wouldn’t hurt him.

   Blaise cradled his head, and then the group began walking as quickly as they could towards Hogwarts’ medical wing with Sarah and Natalie steering the brooms.

   “Do you think the school’s really all back to normal?” asked Natalie as they ascended out of the dungeon levels and could see out of the ground floor windows. The weather was stormy but there were no more dinosaur-looking things lurking on the grass, so Sarah nodded.

   “I think so,” she said. “I mean, I think we’re back in the right universe, I just hope all the rooms are back where they belong, and everyone’s okay.” She glanced down worriedly at Marcus. She didn’t know this boy at all, he might be horrid, or worse knowing the kind of people Slytherin usually attracted. But she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him as his grey face grimaced in near unconsciousness.

   “Don’t worry,” she murmured to him as they made their way up another flight of stairs. “We’re nearly there, just hang on.” Blaise and Natalie both looked at her from the corner of their eyes, but she didn’t care. This mess was her fault and she felt responsible.

   “So where were we?” asked Natalie, breaking Sarah’s train of thought. She raised her eyebrows at her.

   “Hmm?”

   “You said we were back in our own universe, and the Professor said something about being shifted out of reality.” Natalie took hold of one of the broom handles to navigate a corner, but she kept her eyes trained on Sarah. “What does that mean, where did we go?”

   Sarah stared at the floor as they walked. What could she tell them? Should she tell them anything at all? But then she reasoned that the damage had already been done, this whole mess couldn’t get much worse, so she took the plunge.

   “We were in Limbo, the space between realities.”

   Natalie bit her lip as several students ran past, only giving Marcus a fleeting glance. There was still an air of urgency about the school. “Alternate realities?”

   Sarah nodded and watched Blaise shift her grip on Marcus’ head. “There are other worlds,” she said quietly. “Where things turned out differently. Where people made different decisions and created branch off realities, some really similar, some entirely warped beyond recognition.”

   “How do you know this?” asked Blaise, looking out from behind her curtain of hair.

   Sarah sighed; they weren’t far from the hospital wing now.   “Because that’s where I’m from. Another reality. Me and the Draco that’s been here the past week.”

   Natalie and Blaise stopped walking at the same time, before Blaise remembered what they were doing and began moving Marcus once again.

   “Are you joking?” spluttered Natalie. “You’re from a parallel universe?”

   Sarah stared at them. “You believe me?” she asked incredulous.

   Natalie shrugged. “We just watched the rooms move around, and Snape said we’d shifted out of existence.” She raised her eyebrows at Blaise. “Don‘t know about you, but I’m willing to take a leap of faith at this point.”

   Blaise watched the floor as they walked for a moment. “Malfoy does seem different,” she said.

   “He is,” said Sarah enthusiastically. “He’s a good friend of mine, he’s been looking after me.”

   Natalie nodded. “So you two come from an alternate reality?”

   Sarah sighed, still not really believing they thought she was telling the truth, but willing to roll with it for now. “Yes, it’s similar to this world but there are lots of changes too.”

   “Like what?” asked Natalie, enthralled.

   Sarah paused, then answered her. “Well,” she said carefully. “For a start...my full name is Sarah Potter.”

   It was lucky they had arrived at medical, as Natalie not only stopped in her tracks again, but completely let go of Marcus too. Sarah sidestepped her and knocked on the hospital wing’s door.

Madam Pomfrey opened it at once. “Oh not another one,” she cried and flung the door out wide so several house elves could sprint out and retrieve him and his broom-gurney. Sarah caught a glimpse of a very busy hospital wing with house elves running everywhere and grey-faced students in every bed. Her stomach plummeted.

“Thank you girls,” said Madam Pomfrey earnestly, then slammed the door in their faces.

Sarah jumped back and stared at the wooden panels for a moment. How many people had been in there? A dozen, two?

   “Were they all like Marcus?” asked Blaise, who was probably thinking the same thing, and Sarah felt a wave of guilt wash over her.

“I guess,” she said through dry lips.

   Natalie turned to face her. “Can we go back to the part where you said your surname was Potter?”

   Sarah looked between her and Blaise. “In my world,” she said. “Harry is my older brother.”

   Natalie actually took a step back and placed her hand on her forehead. “Shut the front door.”

   Sarah shrugged. “I was trying to get home with Draco, but something went wrong – really wrong. The aftermath of which dragged us into Limbo.” She limply flicked her hand towards the hospital door. “It’s all my fault.”

   Tears threatened to prick at her eyes. “If it wasn’t for you,” said Blaise softly. “That cloud might have got us all.” She smiled a little, and Sarah saw the ghost of her friend, hiding behind that sheet of brown hair.

   A Patronus whizzed around the corner and halted in front of Sarah. It was a doe, and when it opened its mouth it spoke in the voice of Professor Snape. “Miss Potter,” he said calmly as another couple of students sprinted fast, shouting loudly at one another generally about what the Hell was going on. “I hope that you are unharmed and unscathed since I last saw you. I wish you to know that our other friends have departed, and I have dispatched the letters to your brother and his friends.”

   Sarah felt her guts contract. Draco had already gone? But she didn’t get to say goodbye?

   “I would like to ask you to return to the History classroom, and if you are ready we may continue where we left off in our efforts to send you home.”

The doe nodded to indicate it was finished talking, and Sarah realised she was probably supposed to reply. “Oh, yes,” she stammered. “Yes, that’s fine, I’ll make my way up there now.”

   The doe nodded again, then sped off back down the corridor.

   “Blimey he does like to go on a bit, doesn’t he,” scoffed Natalie.

   Blaise tucked her hair behind her ear, showing a little more of her beautiful, unscarred face. Sarah was so used to the angry pink slash on Blaise’s cheek, she felt her face lacked character now without it. “The professor’s helping send you home?” she asked in her soft voice.

   Sarah nodded and sighed.

   Natalie frowned. “Why’d he send Harry a letter?”

   Sarah raised her eyebrows. “No idea,” she lied. “I’d better get going though.” She set off, not looking back but it was evident pretty quickly that the two girls were following her.

   “Sarah,” said Natalie, and up until that point Sarah wasn’t even sure she’d remembered what her name was. “What’s happened to Harry, is he okay?”

   Sarah shoved her hands into the deep pockets of her skirt. “He’ll be back soon,” she muttered. “Hopefully.”

   “Back?” asked Natalie. “Where’s he gone? He hasn’t-” she grabbed Sarah’s arm, and for the first time, Sarah realised how concerned her friend was. “He hasn’t disappeared again, has he?”

   “Again?”

   “Like last November?” clarified Natalie. “When he vanished for a couple of days.”

   “Oh,” said Sarah, then carried on walking. That would have been when he came to her universe. “Um, I’m not sure.”

   “Is he in Limbo still or something?” demanded Natalie. “Is he in danger?”

   Sarah stomped up the stairs and decided to ask her own Natalie about this little crush when she got home. It was weird. “He’s in another reality, like he was last November. That was my world. But we don’t know where he’s gone now – the letter will follow him there though, and he can just come home with it. No big deal.” After he’s defeated Lord Voldemort, she thought miserably to herself. Maybe he never would come back.

   “No big deal?” squeaked Natalie. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard!”

   “I know,” agreed Sarah. “Believe me I know. But he’s still going to be okay.” They waited a moment for the stairs to rearrange themselves in the usual Hogwarts fashion and Natalie tapped her foot, agitated.

   “How did this happen?” asked Blaise incredulously, and Sarah sighed yet again as they wandered up the now stationary stone steps.

   “I really shouldn’t be taking about it, you might get in trouble with the Ministry.”

   Natalie snorted. “I think we’re in trouble already wouldn’t you say?” Sarah kept her mouth shut. Natalie didn’t know how true that was.

   They reached the top and knocked on a portrait of two boys throwing a ball between them. One of them waggled his finger at them and placed the other hand on his hip in a cocky sort of way. His friend threw the ball at his head whilst he wasn’t looking and the painting swung open obediently to let them onto a third floor corridor. But Sarah didn’t move right away.

   It was filled with the faintest wisps of smoke. “No,” she croaked as the smoke curled away from them. There wasn’t much, just a few tendrils, but it chilled Sarah’s blood.

   “Maybe there’s a fire?” suggested Blaise in barely more than a whisper. Sarah opened her mouth to argue what the chances were of a fire randomly starting at the school when there were charms all over the place to prevent that sort of thing, compared to the chances that maybe Snape’s spell hadn’t been quick enough, that maybe one or two of the Fixers had got through to the real world.

   But the words never left her mouth. As at that moment a pair of dark grey eyes opened within the smoke, and all three girls screamed.

  

***

   Harry Potter moved purposefully along the bookshelf in the library, Alex’s amulet clutched in his hand, the lolly pop Madam Pomfrey had given him clamped between his teeth. It was tangerine and cherry flavoured, and had actually managed to sooth his headache a little bit.

   He’d had enough of parallel universes. He’d gleaned enough from this one to know that Sirius was dead, and it may possibly have been his fault. He had to get himself home, he didn’t want to talk to anyone else or find out another way his life could have been. He may not have his parents or sister where he came from but at least he had Sirius. He came across another likely volume and threw it haphazardly onto the pile he was building.

   He’d already found several of the books they’d used in the last couple of days; even though he knew it was harder to get yourself back than to be brought back, he really didn’t care. By merely being proactive he was already feeling better, like when he’d gone to find Hermione last November. He didn’t know what it would accomplish, but it sure beat sitting around and feeling sorry for himself.

   He grabbed the pile he had accumulated and moved to a different section of the library. He received a few curious looks from other people but he was so used to this by now he didn’t give it a second thought. There were a dozen reasons people usually had for craning their necks and staring at him, so they could just pick one and get on with it.

   He threw the books back on the floor, climbed on a nearby pedestal and started searching through titles again, occasionally pulling a book out to read the back in more detail. The best looking one he found was entitled ‘Time Turners, Blood Stones and other Enchanted Amulets.’ He was certain the necklace Alex had given him had something to do with his arrival here, and if he could find out what there was a small chance it would help him home. Right now he would take any chance he could get.

   After his stack had reached a satisfactory height he hefted the books up once again and found a suitably secluded table, eager to begin reading.

      Gradually, all the surrounding distractions disappeared as Harry became more and more involved with his task. He was alone in the world and he liked it, skimming over pages, occasionally finding reference to Hotspots and Leaping, making notes as he went. The more knowledge he accumulated the better he felt, like he was really taking charge of the situation. He learnt that original Hotspots appeared at centres of high magic use, but after stepping through such a portal you could travel anywhere, the destination being specified by the traveller focusing their thoughts (consciously or otherwise, remembered Harry). Once a Hotspot had been created however it would always exist, so his first thought was to go stomping round the Great Hall, shouting to be sent back. He decided against it though.

“Hi Harry!”

   He looked up from his current volume – it seemed to be in some kind of Gobbldygook so he was thinking of abandoning it anyway. He wasn’t sure how many hours he’d been sitting there and he suddenly felt very stiff.

   Neville Longbottom was approaching him, accompanied by a girl Harry didn’t know. He felt maybe he should really know a girl like that though, seeing as her blonde hair was tied in bunches with what appeared to be sprigs of parsley.

“What you up to?” cried Neville cheerily. Harry closed his book and tried his hardest not to look shifty.

   “Oh, you know, homework and stuff,” he said vaguely.

   “I can’t believe they’re piling it on so quickly already, can you?” Neville replied, taking a seat as the girl stared happily outside the window and appeared to be lightly conducting a tune in her head. Neville looked dubiously over the titles. “Some kind of personal project?” he guessed, frowning slightly.

   “Erm, yeah something like that,” said Harry. “It’s pretty tricky though, so I should probably just...”

   “Ooh,” cried Neville, suddenly excited. The girl turned her head, pulling her attention away from the large dragonfly that kept buzzing into the window. It was probably trying to get away from the storm clouds rumbling overhead. “Do you want us to help?” asked Neville in a whispered voice. “We were only coming in here to do some D.A. stuff anyway, you know, keep up the practise.” He winked and grinned at Harry. There was a pause.

   “Oh, oh yeah cool,” said Harry as convincingly as he could. He had no idea what ‘D.A.’ stood for but Neville obviously assumed he did.

   “But we’d be happy to help you out instead,” Neville carried on. “Especially if it was something extracurricular – wouldn’t we Luna?”

   The girl, Luna, was flicking through Harry’s amulet book with one hand, twiddling a long chain of conkers hanging from her waist with the other. She turned her bright blue eyes earnestly towards Harry. “Oh yes,” she said breathlessly in a soft Irish accent. “That would be lovely.” She turned back to the book.

   Harry was feeling a bit cornered. He really didn’t want to involve anyone else or explain himself. He didn’t want to put anyone in danger.

   “Oh, I’m okay, really, it’s not-”

   “This book’s quite a good one,” interrupted Luna, holding it up for him to see. “Although Daddy said the chapter on Time Turners is horribly wrong – it doesn’t mention troll baiting once.”

   Harry blinked. “Do you know about amulets?” he asked, ignoring his hesitations. Luna perched on the side of the table and rested the book on her lap. “Well, Daddy does,” she said, flicking through once again. “I always try my best to remember everything he says, but he does know an awful lot.”

   Harry made a decision, and before he could change his mind he pulled out the necklace Alex had given him, holding it up for Luna to see. “Do you know anything about an amulet like this?”

   She cocked her head and delicately held out her hand. Her fingers were slim and looked fragile, and for some reason she was wearing a Hula-Hoop crisp as a ring. Harry pulled the chain over his head and gave it to her to examine regardless of his reservations. “How beautiful,” she remarked softly, looping the chain between her fingers to let the purple pendant swing. Her large blue eyes followed it back and forth, and Harry resisted the urge to tell her to be careful.

   She swung it up and then snatched it out of the air into her fist. “I’ve never seen anything like it though,” she said, her piercing gaze switching to Harry, and she handed back the necklace. “My logical guess would be some kind of ancient cooking implement.”

   Harry blinked. “Ah,” was all he could muster. That hadn’t been the response he’d been hoping for.

   “Harry,” said Neville uncertainly. He looked around to see the other boy was holding the notes he’d been making. That wasn’t good. “What’s this about?”

   Harry took the parchment from Neville’s hands a little rougher than he meant to. His plan of not getting anyone involved was slowly going out the window to join the dragonfly. “It’s just my project,” he said non-committedly.

   “But, it’s all about parallel universes and stuff,” Neville persisted. “Are...are you trying to find Sirius?”

   Harry’s mouth eased open as he debated on asking Neville to elaborate further. He was slowly putting bits and pieces of Sirius’ death together from what the other Hermione, Ron and Dumbledore had said. But he didn’t get the chance. A tall boy with dark features came strolling around the corner, spied Harry, and with a scowl walked over.

   “Potter,” he said, and disdainfully threw a letter onto the desk. “Slughorn said he found this in the Great Hall and instructed me to deliver it to you.”

   “Slughorn?” said Harry without really knowing why. He didn’t care who Slughorn was – they were probably the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher knowing Hogwarts. What he really cared about was a letter from the Great Hall could only mean one thing: his ticket home.

   “Yes, Slughorn,” sneered the boy. “He also said to remind you not to forget our next little get-together.” Harry didn’t even care what that meant, he just wanted to open his letter.

   The boy leant his hand on the table and bent swiftly over so his face hovered above Harry’s. “I am not your owl, Potter,” he said smoothly. “I suggest in future you take better care of your mail if you wish to hold onto it.” He rippled his fingers on the wood, then swept off the desk and out of the library.

   Harry watched him go, fingers poised to open the envelope which from the looks of it was inscribed with Severus Snape’s handwriting. “Who was that?” he couldn’t help but ask. Neville frowned.

   “Blaise Zabini,” he replied, slightly bemused.

   Harry snapped his head to look at the other two. “But, Blaise is a girl!” he blurted, before realising how stupid he sounded. Strangely, that ruffled Harry more than everything else he’d seen so far in this world. He’d assumed it to be identical to his until the Dimensional Leap last year, but it couldn’t be if Blaise had turned out a he not a she. Neville and Luna frowned, but before they could comment Harry shook his head and ripped open the letter. He’d worry about that later.

 

“Dear Mr Potter, Mr Weasley and Miss Granger,

This is Professor Snape, on behalf of Sarah Potter and Draco Malfoy. It seems something went wrong with the incantation intended to send them home, but by the time we have you safely back we should hopefully have rectified this mistake.

   Please activate this letter in order to facilitate your return journey.

   Yours sincerely,

   Prof. Snape.”

 

   The hand holding the parchment seemed too heavy for Harry to keep holding up, and it fell with a small thud onto the desk. “But...Ron and Hermione aren’t here,” he croaked. Neville looked at Luna who raised her eyebrows.

   “I think they’re at Hagrid’s hut,” she said helpfully.

   Harry looked from one to the other. If they hadn’t travelled with him, where the Hell were they? They could be anywhere! Panic began welling up through his guts and he started to feel sick. He knew one thing though, he couldn’t help them standing in the library, especially not this one.

   He had to get home.

   He threw the amulet back around his neck and took one last look at the notes he had made. “Thanks guys,” he said to Neville and Luna. “I’m sorry I can’t explain, but I have to go.” He walked backwards away from them, standing alone in an isle of books.

   “Go?” exclaimed Neville. “What do you mean go, go where?”

   Harry looked at them and smiled. “Home.”

   He shot the activation spell at the letter clutched between his hands. Light fired in all directions as a roar of thunder exploded through the formerly silent library. An immense crackle of lightening rolled in from outside, and the window behind him shattered. He lurched backwards, like someone had wrapped their arms around his waist then been snapped back by a bungee. He saw himself still standing there, getting smaller as he travelled into the darkness. The other Harry collapsed to the ground.

   And then there was nothing.

 

***

 

   Another boy by the name of Harry Potter stood in another library, although it was not really a library as such and as far away from Hogwarts as could possibly be.

   This Harry Potter was riveted to the ground, shock and confusion holding his voice hostage somewhere between his lungs and his mouth. This Harry Potter, who had watched his godfather murdered in a duel with Bellatrix Lestrange last summer, had watched him fall helplessly beyond the Veil and out of his life. This Harry Potter, who was very, very lost.

   “Sirius?” he said again weakly.

   Sirius Black looked curiously back at the young Gryffindor standing before him. He gave a relieved laugh. “Harry, blimey Harry what are you doing here?” His face suddenly dropped. “You’re not dead too are you?”

   The blood seemed to finally flow back into Harry’s limbs and he dashed over to the older man and threw his arms around him. “I thought I’d never see you again,” he said with his head buried into Sirius’ worn clothes. His godfather hugged him back tentatively, patting his back unsurely.

   “Hey,” he said. “Hey mate, it’s okay.”

   Harry jerked back and looked at his godfather. All those wasted years, all that time they could have been together when he was a fugitive, and then that moment, that moment Harry could never take back no matter how much he begged and pleaded. After all that, and now they were standing here, together, in the place between realities.

   Harry wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry.

   “It’s not okay,” he said, shaking his head, hands still gripped on Sirius’ shoulders. “It’s a complete mess. But we can fix it.” He felt himself smile, a dizzy, happy, childish smile. “Now you’re here, we can fix it.”

He grabbed Sirius’ hand and began pulling him hastily along the stacks, retracing the route he had just run, the route back to the central well.

   “Where’s here?” asked Sirius. “What’s going on – Harry?” He stopped and pulled his hand away. “Harry I’ve only been dead five minutes, cut me some slack.”

   Harry resisted the urge to grab a hold of him again and drag him by force. An uncontrollable excitement was bubbling up inside of him, dancing in his brain, rattling along his ribcage. He had his Sirius back, he just knew it was him, he couldn’t be from another reality, he just _knew._ And now Harry had him back there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do.

   “It’s not been five minutes,” he said as calmly as he could, his voice sounding dry to his own ears. “It’s...it’s been months. It’s been awful, I can’t even explain...”

   “But,” said Sirius, confused and looking around at the stacks of nameless books. “I only just got here.”

   “The Librarian can explain it better,” said Harry, and he couldn’t help himself as he started walking again. Sirius followed though, so he sped up his pace just a little. “But you’ve regained your form because I showed up – it’s complicated.”

   “You don’t say,” muttered Sirius, running his hand along the books spines he was passing. Harry couldn’t get over how much younger and less haggard he looked. Was that Harry’s memory playing tricks on him? Or was it something Limbo had done?

   Sirius suddenly seized his arm and the pair of them stopped walking again. “Harry,” he said quietly. “Are we really dead. I need to know.”

   Harry stared into his eyes, and tried to come up with the most accurate answer he could. “No,” he said firmly. “I’m not dead, I’ve been replaced by another Harry Potter from a different reality so my consciousness is now here.” Sirius creased his forehead and opened his mouth to interrupt, but Harry waved him down. “I know that’s all very weird, but we can go over it later. The important thing is that we’re both in Limbo, which means we’re not really dead.”

   “But we’re not alive either?” asked Sirius, one eyebrow raised.

   Harry rubbed his head. “I guess not,” he said. “But if you come with me, there’s someone here who seems to know what’s going on, and we can ask him everything.”

   This seemed to convince Sirius, and they walked back quickly to the central well without another moment’s hesitation.

   The new Hermione – the one with the straight hair and make-up and a key for a necklace – was the first to notice their return. As Harry all but ran down the couple of the stairs, his head turning in every direction looking for the Librarian, she dropped the book she’d been studying and dashed over to them.

   “Sirius?” she cried, looking from him to Harry. The Librarian wasn’t anywhere in sight, much to Harry’s frustration. “What’s going on?” Hermione demanded. “Why’s Sirius here, was he replaced too?”

   “No,” said Harry fervently, his breathing shallow and fast. “I think this is _my_ Sirius, the one I lost.”

   Hermione stepped back and studied Harry’s godfather. “Hi Hermione,” he said with a little wave. “You here too?” She nodded at him tiredly, but he didn’t seem too put out. “You look nice, you get a haircut?”

   “Mr Potter,” rang out the Librarian’s voice, and Harry spun on his heels, his heart pounding. “You seem to have made a friend.” The little old man was back on his ladder, leaning out of the stacks. Harry turned his head up to watch him descend and walk down into the well. The new Ron was lying on the sofa with his baseball cap over his eyes – apparently he’d decided the only way to make it through his current situation was to sleep through it. The Librarian swiped at his feet, batting them off the sofa arm and waking Ron up with a start. He snatched the cap off his face and blinked his eyes awake as the Librarian perched on the edge of the couch.

   “This Mr Black fell though the Veil, and has been brought back into existence due to his godson’s appearance.”

   “What’s ‘the Veil’?” asked Hermione, looking at Sirius. He was frowning with his hands on his hips, presumably struggling to remember his last moments, thought Harry.

   “An excuse for brilliant young minds at the British Ministry of Magic to waste their time fumbling around with the mysteries of death.” The Librarian folded his arms and peered over his glasses. “Let sleeping dogs lie I say.”

   Sirius groaned as the other people in and around the well turned their attention towards them. There were a few more now in addition to the little French girl, eating yet another ice cream, and the fiery Spanish woman and bitter Chinese man. A black man with snowy white hair and skin like well worn leather sat calmly on one of the little sets of stairs, watching on with his crinkled hands clasped between his knees. A buxom olive-skinned woman in a spangly dress was running her long, painted nails through voluminous, wavy black hair, her dark eyes scanning the surrounding suspiciously. And finally there was a teenage girl with red hair, freckles and glasses who just gawped opened mouthed at Harry wherever he moved.

   Everyone was paying attention to Harry’s conversation with the Librarian. Everyone that was, apart from Draco Malfoy, who was sitting cross-legged on a table determinedly ignoring them all. Harry wasn’t surprised. Malfoy had very vocally blamed Harry for their entire predicament, promised vehemently that his father would sue them all, then not said a word or moved an inch since. Some things, apparently, remained the same no matter what reality you came from.

   “Bellatrix,” said Sirius, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I always knew that cow would be the end of me.”

   “But it’s not the end, is it?” asked Harry eagerly, moving over to the Librarian. “He’s here, so he’s a half-life?”

   The Librarian unfolded his arms and placed his hands on the sofa. “You are correct,” he said after a pause. “He is not dead, but no longer has a physical presence in your world either.”

   “So,” Harry continued, picking his words carefully. “If there’s some way, somehow I can get back...Sirius could come back with me?”

   “But he doesn’t have a body,” said Hermione, and Harry felt a flash of irritation. He didn’t want anyone putting any doubt on the possibility Sirius could be saved. “If we can go home,” she continued. “When our doppelgangers vacate our bodies, that makes sense. But, Sirius is different, isn’t he?”

   “He fell through the Veil,” said Harry stubbornly. “He’s not really dead.” He stepped right in front of the Librarian. “It’s possible, isn’t it?” Harry couldn’t bear the thought that now he’d found his godfather, after all those torturous months, that he was going to lose him again. He just wouldn’t stand for it.

   The Librarian took a moment and stared his steely blue eyes into Harry’s green ones. “It is as theoretically possible for Mr Black to get home as it is for you Mr Potter,” he said evenly. “But I should warn you again the odds of the happening are extremely low-”

   “I don’t care,” interrupted Harry, exulted. He turned to face his godfather. “I’ll bring you with me, I won’t let you down.”

   But as the words left his mouth something strange started happening. His fingertips began to tingle, and a wave of nausea swept over him. He blinked and looked at the Librarian, who stood up and seemed unsure of what to do with his hands.

   “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Take care Mr Potter.”

   “Take care, what do you mean take care?” cried Harry. A shot of blinding pain ran through his forehead and instinctively he grabbed at his scar.

   “Harry!” said Hermione as he buckled over. She seized his shoulders but it didn’t stop him from falling to his knees. What was happening? His vision blurred and it seemed like the library around him was shifting, changing.

   It was turning into the Hogwarts library.

   “NO!” he yelled but the world was slipping away. Lightning flashed and thunder roared, he felt the ground beneath him shake and he fell onto his side, gasping for breath. “Sirius!”

   But it was hopeless, and he watched powerlessly as reality slipped into darkness, leaving him once more at the mercy of nothing.

 

***

 

   “So what’s a cheerleader?” asked Ron Weasley as he followed the girl Abigail Preston marching through the American school of magic, which looked to Ron more like a small town than an educational institution. Twilight was falling, and the sky was turning a riot of blue, pink, orange and purple.

   “They’re like acrobats and dancers all at the same time,” said A.J. distractedly. He seemed to be wrestling internally with everything he was seeing, and sounded relieved to be able to answer a normal question. “They throw people up in the air, then catch them, it’s like a display. Human pyramids.”

   “And they wear these tiny little outfits,” Chris jumped in excitedly.

   “And we have super, duper hearing,” said Abbey from up ahead.

   Ron frowned. “Really?”

   “No dumb-ass,” scalded Abbey, turning around to glare at him. “Y’all are just talking real loud.”

   Ron felt a little embarrassed, but Chris just snorted in laughter, and A.J. had stopped paying attention, focusing instead on the broomsticks flying past, and the students sat upon them.

   “No way,” he said, shaking his head, scowling.

   They carried on marching across the main street of the school complex and headed towards the large building looming ahead of them. Its structure was the same as the smaller accommodation buildings, but it was entirely white with black wooden shutters and pillars that rose all the way from the ground to the triangular roof. The same eagle seal that adorned the front door hung in the centre of the triangular peak, giving the structure an authoritative feel. As they stepped into the immense shadow the building was casting Ron felt the cool wash over him. He’d never experienced heat like this.

   Abbey threw her weight against the heavy looking double doors and swung them open. She had such a curvy, solid look about her, Ron found it hard not to stare. Even with all the strange bruises her skin still looked golden and smooth, and her shiny blonde hair bounced along in a way that seemed like it had a life of its own. She chose that moment though to turn around and catch Ron looking at her, and he felt the heat rise up his neck in embarrassment. Abbey merely huffed and stomped off into the complex.

   “Whoa,” said Chris as they stepped inside. They found themselves in a very large entrance hall with equally grand windows casting pools of various coloured light on the white marbled floor. There was a calm, airy feeling to the building; a grandfather clock chimed seven o’clock in the corner.

   “Hey,” called Abbey from halfway up the sweeping staircase. “I ain’t got all day you know.”

Ron, Chris and A.J. rushed across the marble and up the steps to follow her. She marched upwards, calling over her shoulder. “I’ll take you to the Headmistress, then I’m out – I ain’t got time for-” But they didn’t find out what she had no time for. A tall, well built boy with spiky brown hair came hurtling round the corner as Abbey reached the top of the stairs, and the two crashed into one another. Abbey pin wheeled her arms and Ron only just grabbed her under her arms before she fell. The brown haired boy grinned as he hoped back up to the top step and looked at the girl in Ron’s arms.

   “Abbey, baby,” he said, as two other boys came running round the corner, one huge with a skin-head, the other tall and black. The skin-head threw a ball at the brown haired boy as they hurtled down the grand steps, the tall one shoved A.J. on their way past. “You’ve gotta stop throwing yourself at me like this,” continued the brown haired boy, now twirling the ball in his hands. “It’s embarrassing.”

   Abbey fought to get out of Ron’s arms without losing her balance. “In your dreams Bobby Meyhew!” she snapped. “I’d rather get my liver eaten out with a fork than go on a single date with your sorry ass!” The boy named Bobby just smirked. He was tossing the ball from hand to hand, a resounding smack sounding every time he caught it. Ron thought it was maybe a Quadpot ball, as it was the wrong shape and colour for a Quaffle; Charlie had told him in America they didn’t play much Quidditch as they preferred Quadpot for some reason. He couldn’t remember how it was played, but he wasn’t sure it necessitated the level of swagger emanating from this boy.

   “Now, now sweetie, don’t show off in front of your new friends,” he said in a patronising tone, eyeing up Ron and the others. His grin slipped away. “I don’t know you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

   “Er...” said Ron unimpressively. Bobby took a step forward.

   “Hey, toad,” he said, unnecessarily loudly considering Ron was only a couple of feet away. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my school?”

   Abbey shot between the two boys and shoved Bobby, who was at least twice her size, very hard in the torso. He didn’t move much, but he looked down frowning. “You,” she shouted, waving her finger in his face. “Get. Right now! Or I’m tellin’ your mama what you did to the Seventh Graders at the Spring Fling last year.”

   Bobby narrowed his eyes. Ron was aware that the two other boys, who had been messing around halfway down the steps with a Filibuster firework had stopped and were now watching the proceedings intently, unaware the wick was still flaring in their hands. “You wouldn’t,” said Bobby quite calmly.

   Abbey cocked her eyebrow. “Frogspawn and all.” The brown haired boy stopped chucking his ball about and held it between two hands.

   “Fine,” he said. “Have it your way.” He flicked the ball, hard, into Ron’s torso. It winded him, but he didn’t have much time to react as Bobby smacked it back into his grasp. “That’s my ball, geek,” he growled, bouncing it down the steps. He barked at his cohorts to follow him, and Abbey stormed off round the corner. As Ron, A.J. and Chris joined her there was a distinct bang of a firework followed by some explicit cursing from somewhere down the stairs.

   “I find it somewhat comforting,” said Chris as they marched down the corridor, past a number of closed doors and through the bright patches of sunlight that glittered on the floor. “That even in Magic High they still have jocks as well as cheerleaders.”

   “Magic High,” scoffed A.J. “This is such a load of...” He shook his head rather than finish his sentence. His arms were folded defensively.

   But Abbey stopped walking and slowly turned round to look at him. The rest paused in their stride too. “You got a problem Mr Muggle?” she said, her eyes still fired up from the earlier confrontation. No one said anything.

   “You said ‘Muggle’ wasn’t a bad thing,” said Chris to Ron eventually, a little upset.

   “Of course they ain’t, dumb ass, my mama’s a Muggle,” snapped Abbey.

   “Then why-”

   “I just don’t appreciate some Muggle comin’ into my school, ruinin’ my day then actin’ like I made you do all this. I coulda left you outside with the geese.” She banged her fist on the frame of an oil painting of a rather gentile looking girl with a bonnet and big white dress. She jumped in her seat and hid behind her lacy fan as her portrait swung on its hinges to reveal a tunnel. Chris gaped at the moving picture but A.J. seemed not to notice as they walked purposely down the passage way, the lamps lighting as they passed.

   “You could have been Obliterated and left on the side of the road, you should feel privileged to be in here,” she continued. A.J. harrumphed.

   “It’s just can’t be real, it _can’t,”_ he insisted, and Ron almost felt sorry for him.

   “If you’re so jack-ass stubborn you can’t see what’s in fronta your own eyes, ain’t my problem,” snapped Abbey.

   Chris patted A.J. on the shoulder. “Come on man,” he said as they clambered out of the other side of the tunnel. “Don’t you think it’s just a tiny bit awesome? Even if you ignore the magic part for a minute, how often to you hop in the car and drive across half a dozen states on a whim? This is the kind of thing you’re supposed to do before college.” He grinned, satisfied his argument had cleared up all possible grievances.

   The wall slid back into place leaving no trace of the passageway. “I just think we’re being had,” said A.J., eyeing up Ron, but he didn’t seem all that convinced.

   Ron shrugged. “I told you, you didn’t have to come.”

   “Yeah,” agreed Abby. “Beats me why Crabapple wanted you inside, y’all should be on your way home by now, no idea this ever happened. Instead you’re in one of the best magic schools in the whole darn world, an’ all you can do is whine.”

   “Hogwarts is pretty good too,” Ron felt he had to say in his school’s defence as they carried on walking down the corridor. Abbey looked sideways at him, her expression unreadable.

   “Was,” she said quietly.

   They carried on walking in silence, up a few flights of stairs and past a bust of a house elf that croaked “Howdy” to them as they went by. What had she meant by ‘was’? thought Ron anxiously. Had Hogwarts been destroyed in this reality? Or did she just mean it was closed, like it had been in Draco and Sarah’s world? Ron felt a little queasy at the idea the school might be gone; it had been there a thousand years, how could it be gone?

   He shook his head and banished the thought. It wasn’t any of his business. He needed to get home where he knew there was still a Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and forget all about this place. “Do you think your headmistress will be able to help?” said Ron as they approached a set of ornate double doors. His head was throbbing again.

   Abbey shrugged. “No idea.” She banged three times and the doors swung open.

   The four teenagers stepped back to avoid their toes getting squashed. There was a large room beyond the doors, bright and airy like the entrance hall had been. The walls were lined with carved wooden bookcases and thriving plant pots blossomed from every possible surface. At the end of the room a large black woman sat at a grand mahogany desk, covered in papers and yet more plants. One of them appeared to be humming to itself. She peered up over her reading glasses and arched an eyebrow.

   “Abigail,” she stated. “You and your guests may sit.” With a lazy flick of her wand she conjured up four chintz chairs and went back to the letter she was reading. Ron looked unsure at Abbey, but she strolled in and took a seat, crossed one leg on top of the other, then looked back at the three boys. She gestured with an impatient nod of her head that they should do the same.

   Once settled on the squashy cushion Ron wrapped his fingers around the wooden seat edge and opened his mouth to say something. But he didn’t know where to start, and the room was so quiet (save from the humming Venus fly trap) he felt intimidated. So he shut his mouth and there they sat. The minutes dragged on. He looked again at Abbey, but she was just staring absent-mindedly at a framed photo of an old Quadpot team. Chris was looking round the room, his mouth hanging slightly open. A.J. had his hands knotted between his knees and his eyes were fixed on them.

   “Why were you outside, Abigail?” asked Madam Crabapple eventually, still reading her letter for what Ron felt must be the fifth time now.

   “Orthodontists,” she said with conviction. “I cleared it with Professor Rodriguez. My mama said she wants me to have the perfect smile just the way she did – without magic.” She nodded her head with a sort of sad resolution, but then perked up. “She says I’m gonna be Homecoming Queen if it kills her. Or me,” she added in a flat murmur.

   The headmistress (as the little plaque in between the plants titled her) gave a noncommittal ‘hmm’ and turned over another page of parchment. Abbey smiled and looked out the window towards some kind of sports pitch. The little blobs of blurry purple movement suggested to Ron that’s where the girl would rather be.

   Ron began lightly drumming his fingers on the wood. His mind wandered, imagining exactly what he would say to Draco Malfoy the next time his saw him, about the mess he’d gotten him in to, and then exactly how he would punch him on the nose. It would give a satisfying crack and spurt blood everywhere as people around him cheered. Every time Ron thought about it there were more and more people gathered round, and some of them would even hug and kiss him after.

   After another minute or two, Madam Crabapple carefully folded up the parchment and offered it to the fly trap. It stopped humming, and turned its head with interest. The teacher shook the letter encouragingly, and the plant opened its large mouth for her to drop the parchment in. It sat happily chewing on its snack, slowly swallowing it, and Madam Crabapple laced her fingers together on the desk in front of her ample bosom.

   “I have been informed,” she said in a deep and melodious voice. “By the British Ministry of Magic, that an underage wizard, previously thought to be deceased, is in fact now running round North East America, practicing magic in front of Muggles.” Ron looked guilty as her gaze swept rightwards from him to Chris and A.J. It didn’t stay there long. “I urged them not to take action, on a request from my good friend Albus Dumbledore.”

“Dumbledore’s here!” blurted out Ron. His relief was tangible; finally someone he knew, someone on his side. Madam Crabapple tilted he head and narrowed her eyes, and he thought it best not to interrupt again.

   “Albus is not here,” she corrected. “He is far too weak to travel. He was however aware of your situation almost as soon as it occurred, and advised me you might try and seek our help.”

   “So you believe me then?” Ron couldn’t help but ask. “You think I’m from another dimension?”

   Madam Crabapple sat back in her chair. “Albus believes you, and therefore so do I.” Ron blew out a sigh of relief and actually laughed.

   “Brilliant,” he grinned. Chris grinned back at him but A.J. still frowned.

   “How come you let the Muggles in Ma’am?” asked Abbey. She wasn’t being horrible, just curious.

   “Alexander James and Christopher are our guests for the time being,” explained Crabapple. “They are now in some danger and require the protection of these walls.”

   “Danger?” asked Chris.

   “How did you know our names?” said A.J. at the same time.

   “So you can send me home?” said Ron to the teacher, ignoring all the others. She took a breath and looked down at her hands.

   “According to Dumbledore, your ‘situation’,” Crabapple emphasised. “Is actually a bit more complicated than just returning you home.” Ron felt his grin fade. Of course it was.

   “More serious than waking up in your doppelganger’s pyjamas?” asked Abbey. Madam Crabapple nodded.

   “Trading your life force with that of another, no matter if that other looks and sounds like you, has serious consequences. It also,” she said, leaning forward once again. “Has serious power.”

   Ron thought about this a moment. “Power?” The headmistress nodded. “Me? But, I’m nothing special.”

   “I think you will find,” she said, standing up. “That it is your _potential_ for power that will now get you into trouble.”

   “Oh good, more trouble,” grumbled Ron. The professor was reaching up to one of her top shelves, she scooted a couple of walking tea cups out of the way and pulled a wooden bowl gently down with her finger tips.

   “I’d like to share something with you kids,” she said, placing the bowl in between her plants and papers. The Venus fly trap sniffed at the silvery smoke-like liquid inside but Crabapple tapped the end of its nose and it backed away.

   “Is that a Pensive?” asked Abbey in awe. Ron looked at it. Harry had told him about Dumbledore’s pensive, he’d said it was a stone bowl that you could put memories into and then other people could look at them.

   “What’s a Pensive?” asked Chris eagerly. Madam Crabapple actually managed a smile.

   “Lean in and find out.”

   The four students (even A.J. reluctantly) leaned forward in their chairs to look at the silvery substance. Ron sort of knew what was going to happen, but he was still shocked when the force sucked him into the bowl and into the memory.

   They landed hard on their feet in another room surrounded by plants, but this one was quite different. A.J. spun round furiously, taking in his surroundings, and Ron was momentarily surprised that the magic had worked on them. But he guessed they hadn’t actually had to do anything for the spell to work. “What the Hell just happened?” A.J. gasped, but Abbey shushed him with fervour. They were standing in a large greenhouse, the stone floor was covered in smatterings of fresh dirt, and there was a rack of different coloured earmuffs hanging in the corner. Rain was pelting down on the glass roof above their heads.

   “Hogwarts,” moaned Ron with a fondness he never thought he’d possess for his old school. They were in one of the Herbology classrooms. But Abbey shushed him as well and pointed to a figure fussing behind a work bench covered in mud, hedge clippers and several mugs that once contained tea. It was a very young looking Professor Sprout. Slimmer, less laughter lines, but still just as much dirt. “I don’t think she can hear us,” said Ron confidently as she bustled past them to address the class behind them, totally oblivious to their presence. Every child had a pulsating orangey yellow plant with what looked like large pea pods hanging off them.

   “What the _Hell_ is happening!” hissed A.J. who’s black skin had gone as pale as it possibly could. Chris was again looking around with his mouth hanging open.

   “You’re in someone’s memory,” said Ron hastily. Professor Sprout had started talking and he didn’t want to miss whatever they were supposed to hear. “Crabapple obviously wants to show us something important, so shut up.”

   “-highly potent,” the teacher had been saying, and the four students gave her their full attention, along with the rest of the class in the memory. “So make sure you’ve got your gloves on and there are no holes. Potter!” she snapped. “This is no joke!”

   Ron immediately scanned the class for Harry with a thrill of hope, but it was a different boy with black hair and glasses that looked sheepish in the corner. “Sorry Miss, it was Lupin,” he said cheekily.

   “Was not!” cried a boy with shaggy brown hair beside him. It was Harry’s dad, realised Ron with a strange sensation in his stomach. Sirius was beside him, and Wormtail was trying to copy his notes. The all must have been about thirteen.

   A girl with red hair had her hand up in the air, eager to ask a question. “Professor?” she asked. Sprout nodded at her.

   “Yes Evans?”

   “What do the pods actually do, why are they so dangerous?”

   “Very good question,” replied the teacher. “They have psychotropic qualities – can anyone tell me what that means?”

   “Makes you mental!” cried out a boy who Ron deemed seriously in need of a haircut.

   “I thought it was like hallucinations, or something,” said an Indian girl a little more timidly.

   “They give you visions,” came a voice from the back. Sirius was flicking through his textbook in an engaged sort of way, and hadn’t looked up to answer. He frowned as he came across something in the text, then made a note on his parchment.

   “Yes!” cried Professor Sprout. “Ten points for Gryffindor. The plants alter your state of mind, and can act as a catalyst for those with particular skills in Divination.”

   “What’s-” Chris began to ask, but the room swirled around them. Suddenly it was a bright sunny day, and the orangey plants were much taller. “-Divination?”

   “Fortune telling,” supplied Abbey, looking intently at the new scene before them. Chris blinked, unable to process that they had just moved to another memory. A.J. stood beside him, one hand over his mouth, the other wrapped around his waist. Professor Sprout was telling the same class how to pop the peas from the pods without damaging them.

   “That’s it, into the dishes, careful not to drop any.”

   The class were in deep concentration, working on their plants in pairs. It was stiflingly hot in the greenhouse, the rain on the roof above their heads having been replaced by bright sunshine.

   Suddenly, a girl began to scream. She was staring at her partner who had frozen; her hair was billowing above her head, and she was arched looking at the ceiling. Even Ron could see the hole in her glove from where they were standing. “Everyone stand back!” yelled Sprout, and the class scrambled to move away from the girl.

   “What’s happening?” cried James Potter, trying to see even though the other students were pushing him back. “What’s-”

   But he soon found out. The girl opened her mouth, and her voice came out in a husky shout.

_“He who misplaces himself shall hold the key, and he shall bring light and power and control to all he sees, all he can imagine. And with great force and acumen he will be the instrument of unity, and the king of all will rule.”_

   The girl collapsed to the floor and Professor Sprout rushed forward to tend to her. Ron and his companions stood very still as the world swirled once more and pulled them out of the memory.

   They landed back in Madam Crabapple’s office. Ron shook himself and blinked. Chris grabbed A.J. as their legs gave way and they landed unsteadily in their seats. Abbey gawped at Ron, unaware that her headmistress was watching them expectantly. “What in Seven Hells was that about?” she demanded, not fazed by her voyage in and out of the Pensive. Chris however, kept blinking at his trainers, and A.J. looked to be threatening a full on heart-attack. He was controlling his breathing with such force he sounded like an accordion, and he was gripping on to the sides of his head like it might split in two.

   Ron, who had heard that prophecy before, in a courtroom a long way from where he was now standing, felt his knees go a little weak too, and he sat with a thump in his own chair.

   “What was that British kid talkin’ about?” said Abbey swinging her head around, expecting answers. But then she settled on Madam Crabapple, her eyes growing wide. “You said Ron had power, and that’s what the girl said.” She turned to Ron. “Was that _you?_ Are _you_ the king?”

   Madam Crabapple considered Ron, and he felt himself go a little dizzy. “What do you think Mr Weasley?” she asked.

   “I think,” he said slowly, licking his lips and rubbing the back of his head. “That that would definitely count as ‘more trouble’.”

 


	5. Disturbia (Part One)

Chapter Four – Part One

   Disturbia

 

No more gas in the rig

Can't even get started

Nothing heard nothing said

Can't even speak about it

Out my life, out my head

Don't wanna think about it

Feels like I'm going insane

 

It's a thief in the night

To come and grab you

It can creep up inside you

And consume you

A disease of the mind

It can control you

It's too close for comfort

 

Throw on your brake lights

We're in the city of wonder

Ain't gonna play nice

Watch out, you might just go under

Better think twice

Your train of thought will be altered

So if you must falter be wise

Your mind is in disturbia

It's like the darkness is the light

Disturbia

Am I scaring you tonight

Disturbia

Ain't used to what you like

Disturbia

 

Rihanna

 

   For a moment, there was nothing. It lingered, swirling, all consuming.

   It didn’t last.

   With a terrified gasp Harry Potter snapped open his eyes and sat bolt upright. His head throbbed and he felt sick to his stomach but otherwise he was unharmed. A breeze blew gently past him, and looking over his shoulder he realised the window was broken, shattered. Only the jagged edges remained.

   “Harry?” came an uncertain voice. Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood were staring at him. He was sitting on the library floor, a large dragonfly buzzing about his head. Suddenly it all came flooding back to him.

   “Sirius!” he cried, and stood shakily to his feet. Neville and Luna ran over to help him.

   “Harry what that Hell is happening?” asked Neville, just as Madam Pince the librarian came storming over to ask the very same question. When she saw the glass all over the floor she furiously repaired it with one flick of her wand, and managed a single hiss that generally conveyed the idea that they should leave, very soon.

   Harry looked around bewildered as Neville scooped up pages and pages of notes written in his own hand, though they were unfamiliar to him. His mind was a blur. Had he really just found Sirius? Could he maybe bring him back, save him? He spotted the covers of some of the books as Madam Pince tried to balance them in one pile and pick them up.

   “Hang on,” he said, putting his hand on top of the pile and checking the rest of the titles. “Can I check all these out?” The Hogwarts librarian looked like she’d rather break the spines of every single book herself right there in front of him, but she reluctantly agreed.

   The three students made it out into the corridor, then Harry stopped right where he was, slid down the wall and spread the books out again. “I need those notes,” he said to Neville, flicking through the first volume his hand touched. Neville and Luna looked at each other, then sat on the floor with their friend. Neville handed over the parchment.

   “Seriously Harry, what’s got into you?” he asked. “Blaise gave you that letter and you’ve just lost the plot.”

   “What letter?” said Harry, his head snapping up. Neville arched an eyebrow.

   “This one,” said Luna helpfully, holing out a single sheet of parchment. Harry took it and read it. And read it again.

 

“Dear Mr Potter, Mr Weasley and Miss Granger,

This is Professor Snape, on behalf of Sarah Potter and Draco Malfoy. It seems something went wrong with the incantation intended to send them home, but by the time we have you safely back we should hopefully have rectified this mistake.

   Please activate this letter in order to facilitate your return journey.

   Yours sincerely,

   Prof. Snape.”

 

   “Well, that makes little to no sense,” he said, and handed it back to Luna, nose already back in the book. Luna read the message thoughtfully, then passed it over for Neville’s consideration.

   “Who’s Sarah Potter,” he asked, holding up the letter to Harry as if to illustrate. “And why’s she hanging out with Malfoy?”

   “No idea,” replied Harry, scanning through one of the pages he’d written; the words ‘Dimensional Hotspots’ had been written and re-written in big black letters then underlined several times at the top.

   “You seemed to know a minute ago,” commented Luna in a dreamy voice. “Then there was a big storm in the library and you took a funny turn.”

   The drumming in Harry’s chest was finally beginning to subside from the initial adrenalin rush he’d suffered waking up. As he began to feel more calm his friends’ words started penetrating his thoughts and panic, and he in turn began to process them.

   “You were talking to me just now?” he said after taking a deep breath.

   They both nodded.   “You said you were working on something, then Blaise gave you the letter,” explained Neville. “Then you get upset about Ron and Hermione and said you had to go home.”

   “That’s when all the lightening happened,” added Luna.

   Harry thought about this, then looked down at his notes.   “It wasn’t me you were talking to,” he said.

   “I think it was-” began Neville, but Harry shook his head.

   “It wasn’t, it was another me from...” he stopped as several fourth years went into the library giving the trio funny looks as they passed. Harry waited until the door was shut again. “An alternate reality.”

   They both stared at him. “Oh, okay,” replied Luna in an understanding voice, but Neville shook his head.

   “No, I don’t get it.”

   Harry sighed. Of course he didn’t, why would he? It was ludicrous – the body swapping, the dead-people-who-weren’t-really-dead, the limbo library. His heart was really slowing now as he tried to think where to start.

He did his best to explain. Where he’d been, the other Ron and Hermione from different universes, and the Draco Malfoy too. Neville and Luna watched dumbstruck. “It was a sort of Limbo place,” he said, remembering what the little Librarian man had said. He reached forward and shook open the letter Luna had given him a moment ago. “I bet these people in the letter, this Ron, Hermione and Draco, are the ones who displaced us and made us half-lives.” He pulled open another book and cross referenced it with a few notes at the bottom of the page in his hand. He knew this was a bit much to just dump on his friends out of the blue, but the burning desire to find Sirius overrode the need to sit patiently and wait for them to respond.

   “Is this possible?” exclaimed Neville finally in disbelief, turning some of the books around to look at the descriptions on the back. Harry nodded.

   “The other Harry, the one who was just here wearing my clothes, he’s done it quite a lot apparently.”

   “He had a pendant,” Luna said, remembering. “Do you still have it, round your neck?” Harry felt for it but there was nothing; it probably wasn’t that important anyway.

   “But that’s not all,” he carried on, and he tried to explain, as best he could, what had happened with Sirius.

   Neville was wide eyed. “And he was definitely our Sirius, not from anywhere else?” Harry nodded, his enthusiasm rising again.

   “And now I’m back, it’ll be easier to bring him back too, that’s what the Librarian said.”

   “That’s nice,” said Luna with a big smile.

   “But how?” asked Neville a little more practically. Harry frowned.

   “I’m not sure,” he admitted, and they sat in silence for a while. There had to be a way, hidden in all these books. He couldn’t let his godfather down now, not after being so close. He’d been pulled back because the other Harry had gone and left his body vacant – he’d been sucked back if anything, like water down a plug. What they needed was something that could reach out and grab Sirius and bring him back to this plane. If only there were some kind of way in...

   It was obvious. The thought struck him like a slap in the face as the library door opened once again and the fourth years came out. He recognised one of them as Natalie MacDonald from the Gryffindor reserves team. He jumped up excitedly.

   “Natalie!” he cried. She turned, and upon realising who had called her gave a stunned grin.

   “Hi Harry,” she said breathless and eager, then arched her eyebrows at the mess he’d made on the floor. “Up to much?” she asked, unsure.

   “Er yeah, sort of,” he said sheepishly. “Listen, could you do me a favour – I need Ron to meet me here, and Hermione if she’s about. It’s really important.”

   Natalie swelled with pride at being asked to help The Boy Who Lived in front of all her friends. “Sure thing!” she cried and darted off.

   “I think they’re at Hagrid’s!” Harry called after her and grinned. Some kind of plan was blossoming in his mind, he just needed to work out the details.

   “What’s going on Harry?” asked Neville from the floor. Harry grinned even more.

   “We’re going to need _a lot_ of rope,” was all he said.

 

***

 

   Because there was nothing else at all he could think of to do, Ron Weasley sank meekly back into his chair and stared at Madam Crabapple. “That prophecy’s not about me,” he said in a small voice. The headmistress looked at him sympathetically.

   “Yeah it were!” cried Abbey, flinging herself into the seat beside him. “I heard it with my own two ears. Talked about people misplacin’ themselves, that’s gotta be hoppin’ through different universes and stuff.” She punched him on the arm. “Guess you’re in charge of all us folk now Mr King Sir,” she added, grinning.

   Crabapple did not seem as cheerful. “It is not exactly clear who or what the prophecy is about Miss Preston,” she said gently. “But it can very well be interpreted the way you suggest.”  

   “But,” said Ron desperately. “I already heard that prophecy, it was about Malfoy. I don’t have any key or anything, I’m not a king, I don’t know what it means.”

   “I doubt that will matter very much to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” said the teacher as kindly as she could. Something cold and slippery plummeted in Ron’s stomach.

   “You-Know-Who?” he whispered. Of course. All Voldemort wanted to do was kill Malfoy.

   “Is that that bad wizard Bill was talking about?” asked Chris in hushed tones. “The one from England?”

   Crabapple nodded. “The most feared and evil wizard our kind has ever known. I hate to sound melodramatic, but there’s no sense hiding the truth from you kids at this stage of the game.”

   Ron shivered, a wave of nausea washing over him. He knew something like this would happen – why were things never simple? Wasn’t it bad enough he was in the wrong reality? “He going to come after me isn’t he? I never should have come here, it’s made it worse, Bill said...” The words froze on his lips and he looked at the headmistress with terrified eyes. “My family!” he gasped. “He’ll go after my family, we have to warn them-”

   He sprung to his feet. Even if they were a strange American version they were still the Weasleys, he couldn’t bring this crashing down on them too.

   “It’s okay Ronald,” cried Madam Crabapple, raising her hand to call him back to his seat. “The Bureau have already sent a team over to secure your house and relocate your family for the time being.”

   “Bureau?” he asked weakly, sitting back down again. Abbey had mentioned that.

“The Bureau of Illusions. A magical branch of the government, like your Ministry of Magic.”

   “Holy cow, you mean there really is an X-Files?” exclaimed Chris eagerly, but the look he got from the witches in the room told him that maybe now wasn’t the time.

   “My best advice to you now is to seek refuge under our roofs,” Madam Crabapple told them. “I will call my heads of departments in to discuss how to facilitate your return journey, and how best to protect your family and the Ron of this world when you leave.”

   “When I-” said Ron breathless. “When I leave? You mean you _can_ get me home?” Hope ignited in him. If he could just leave before there was any more trouble everyone would be okay.

   “We can certainly try,” said the headmistress. She reached into a drawer and took out a small silver whistle; she blew it once then returned it to its home. A large grey owl swooped up to the open window and perched on the wide sill. It hooted softly. “Thank you Artemis,” said the woman to the bird. “I wish to speak with the heads.” It ruffled its feathers and flew away once again.

   “I’ve really messed things up,” said Ron, dropping his head into his hands. The guilt washed over him like a cold wave in the sea. Someone rubbed his back.

   “What choice did you have?” said Abbey. “You didn’t ask to come here, or for You-Know-Who to chase you down. It’ll be okay.”

   “What do we do now?” asked Chris. Ron couldn’t bring himself to lift his gaze from his knees; the headache was even worse now and he was feeling sick. Whether that was the fault of his new predicament or something else he wasn’t sure.

   “Abbey, if I could trouble you to be custodian of our guests a little longer, I would suggest they find somewhere to collect their strength and thoughts for the next few hours.” From the corner of his eye Ron saw Abbey nod eagerly and he heaved his head upwards.

   “Sure thing Ma’am,” she said eagerly, her tune much changed from half an hour ago. “I’ll take care of them, don’t you worry.”

   She jumped to her feet and hauled Ron up alongside her. “There’s loads a places to get yourself lost round here, I’ll find us somewhere safe and quiet.” The boys rose to their feet. Ron felt numb, like he was looking at everything through a greasy window. How could everything go so utterly, completely wrong?

   “Don’t trouble yourself too much son,” said Crabapple kindly. “We’ll sort it out, you’ll see.”

   It was oddly quiet when they stepped out into the corridor. All the students were probably back in their dorms, having their dinners, thought Ron in a detached sort of way. Was he hungry? He couldn’t tell.

   “Let’s go this way,” said Abbey brightly. “I’ll take you to the our common room or something...”

   “Wait,” came a pained voice, and Ron did just that. He and Chris turned in the same direction to see A.J. had come to a halt behind them. “Just...wait,” he all but pleaded.

   Abbey came behind Ron and Chris, and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “You okay sugarplum?” she asked from between their heads, her hair tickling Ron’s ear.

   A.J. had looked grey and ashen when he’d returned from the Pensive, but now his cheeks were flush and glowing. “I-” he stuttered, his eyes moving between the two boys before him. “I’m so sorry.” Ron’s eyebrows shot up.

   “You are?” he said, and A.J. nodded emphatically.

   “I called you a liar and a fraud. You needed help and I laughed in your face.”

   Ron felt uncomfortable. Abbey’s mouth was open and Chris was grinning. “It’s okay, I knew I sounded nuts,” Ron mumbled, slightly embarrassed.

   A.J. took a step forward shaking his head. “But it’s all _true,_ I can’t quite believe it but it is.” He threw his hands up and looked around the walls. “Magic is real and my best bud is a freaking wizard.” He dropped his hands and smiled at Ron. “So I’m sorry. I mean it.”

   “Yeehaw!” yelled Chris and jumped up, his fist punching the air. “Knew you’d come around eventually.” He bounded over and grabbed A.J. around the neck in some sort of man-hug. “You big dumb ass.” He winked at Abbey as she raised an eyebrow and A.J. wrestled free.

   “Okay, okay,” he laughed, then looked hopefully at Ron.

   He lifted his hands up. “Mate, it’s totally not a thing, I forgive you.”

   Abbey scoffed. “If y’all have finished man-bonding, there’s still a killer wizard after our boy here.” She jerked a thumb at Ron, and reality came crashing down on him again.

   “Oh yeah,” he said bleakly. “That.”

   “Aw don’t mope,” said Abbey as the other two boys joined them. “I got a real good hidin’ place I’m a take you to. Then,” she beamed at A.J. “I can tell you all about bein’ a witch an’ stuff.”

   They began walking down the corridor again, and Ron felt lighter for A.J.’s acceptance, and even more glad the two Muggles had insisted on coming along with him. He was used to big surprises, being in dangerous situations, making hard decisions, but he’d always had Harry and Hermione by his side, or his family. In their absence he was starting to feel very grateful to Chris and A.J., maybe Abbey too if she was going to be nice to them now.

   “So,” said A.J. tentatively after his apology. “All the magical people go to this one school?”

   “In the U.S.,” said Abbey. “Every country has its own school, like Beauxbatons in France, and Mahoutokoro in Japan-”

   “And Hogwarts,” chimed in Ron defensively. “The British one.”

   Abbey gave him a small smile as they began descending some stairs, before her face lit up. “Oh, let’s take a detour, I can show you something.”

   “About Hogwarts?” asked Ron as they sped down the steps and reached the ground floor again. It wasn’t the entrance hall though, but a different main corridor showing the outer buildings through the windows, becoming gloomy in the twilight.

   “About Salem,” she said, and turned to A.J. “All the wizards and witches start here after Elementary school, it’s a Middle and High school all in one. But there are so many of us we get split up into houses.”

   “So do we,” said Ron eagerly. “There are four – Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin – but no one wants to be in Slytherin.”

   “Why?” asked Chris.

   Ron scowled. “Anyone who ever went dark came out of Slytherin.”

   A.J. raised an eyebrow, but Abbey steered them through a thoroughfare, and the light dimmed dramatically, catching his attention. “They seem like real mouthfuls,” said Chris, wrinkling his nose. “Why not just number them?”

   “They’re named after the people that founded them,” supplied Abbey as she ventured into the gloom. “Just like ours.” She opened her arm out, and Ron saw they were in a short corridor, maybe twenty feet or so. There were six glass cabinets, three on each side, reaching from floor to ceiling. Each cabinet was glowing with a soft light hanging above it, and contained some sort of object. “These are our Monuments,” said Abbey proudly. “They represent each house, and they have a sacred artefact to represent each one, along with our house points.”

   She pointed to the closest cabinet, indicating the glass vase almost a quarter full of purple and silver pebbles. But Ron’s attention was caught by the artefact perched on a display stand within the cabinet. The axe looked old, and the size wasn’t all that impressive, but what was significantly impressive was the fact it was engulfed in steadily burning flames.

   “Is that really on fire?” Chris gasped, jumping to Ron’s side and pressing his face towards the glass. The hilt where someone might hold it wasn’t burning, but the flames stared once the leather of the handle finished, and crept up along the wood of the stem, out encompassing the metal of the blade as well.

   Abbey nodded enthusiastically. “That’s the Thunderbird Monument,” she pointed again at the pebbles. “We’re already in the lead for house cup.”

   But none of the boys were all that interested in the stones in the vase, as even the reserved A.J. came closer to gawp at the axe. “How come it doesn’t go out?” he asked. “Or destroy the wood?”

   Abbey huffed, a little miffed. “How the Hell should ah know,” she griped. “Magic? The tomahawk belonged to the founder of our house, he was this Native American wizard but ah guess the locals thought he was god, said he caused the thunder an’ lightning’.” She tapped the glass panel. “This here’s Firefly, they worshiped that too – look.” She pulled out her top. “That’s what my team’s named after. The flame’s never gone out, not in over a hundred years, it’s the Thunderbird legacy.”

   Chris stepped back, mouth open and hands on the small of his back as he squinted in the dim light. There was also a plaque at the top of the cabinet that read ‘Thunderbird’, and he pointed to it. “You named yourselves after puppets?”

   Abbey’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “That were the wizard’s name,” she growled. “Not our fault some dumb T.V. show came along in the sixties. See,” she pointed down the corridor. “They’re all named after their founders.”

   Ron took a step away from the fiery tomahawk axe and looked at the five other cabinets. The next one along read ‘Creidhne’ and had a silver hand reaching out of its plinth, jade and gold pebbles in the vase below. Then there was ‘Laveau’ with a crude wooden ceremonial mask; Van Tassel with no plinth but a travelling cloak suspended inside the cabinet; Tezcatlipoca containing a large oblong mirror, black smoke curling from the reflective surface and disappearing into the air; and finally…

   “Jacobs?” said Ron, pointing at the last cabinet containing an equally unimpressive pilgrim’s hat.

   Abbey raised an eyebrow. “Not everyone can have a crazy surname.”

   “Abigail, what’s happening, are you alright?” A young teacher came running to a halt beside the four students between the cabinets. Even in the gloom it was obvious he was very handsome, with black hair and olive skin. Everything about him was neat and tidy Ron noticed. Every hair combed and crease ironed in the right place. He looked concerned at Abbey, then confused at the other three. “Artemis said it was urgent.”

   “Oh we’re fine, just fine,” assured Abbey, her face transformed with a delighted smile. “Thanks for askin’ Professor Rodriguez, the headmistress asked me to look after these here boys today,” she explained, puffing out her chest. “It’s what she wants to talk to you about, real important stuff.”

   “Oh,” said the teacher, regaining his composure. “Oh, okay then – as long as you’re okay? Wouldn’t want one of my best students getting into any trouble.” He had an accent Ron noticed, similar to Bill’s wife Lucile.

   Abbey flushed bright red. “Oh, no trouble here sir, I promise.” She grinned. “I was telling the boys about the school an’ everythin’.”

   Rodriguez nodded. “Excellent,” he said, relieved and satisfied, then turned to head back towards where they’d come from the headmistress’ office.

   “He’s such a nice teacher, always so concerned,” said Abbey in a breathless voice. She turned around to realise the three boys were staring at her. “What?” she demanded.

   Ron sniggered. “Nothing,” he said grinning.

 

***

 

   Hermione wasn’t sure if she could run any more. What on Earth had possessed her other self to wear these boots? They were hard enough to walk in, let alone sprint away from a hoard of cursed towns folk. What was she thinking? Parvati was definitely struggling as well, but for once was suffering in silence.

   Suddenly Harry veered off to the right down a path flanked by two lines of trees. The area was deserted save for a large house up ahead of them at the end of the path, dappled by the shadows cast from the trees in the early afternoon sunlight. As he skidded to a halt he fumbled in his pocket and eventually pulled out a set of keys.

   “Come on, come on,” whispered Parvati as he flicked hurriedly for the right one and jammed it into the lock. With a collective gasp the four students fell through the door and slammed it shut behind them.

   For several minutes they panted in the silence, not looking at one another. For the second time that evening Hermione thought she might throw up, but managed to hang on until the feeling passed again. Parvati smoked another cigarette with trembling fingers, but not one told her off, even though the smoke did nothing to help Hermione’s nausea, she just didn’t have the energy.

   After a time Harry straightened up and walked into the living room on the left. Hermione guessed this must be his house, but it was just as deserted as all the others. The early October sunshine was too weak to permeate the net curtains, making the house pretty dark. “Mum?” Harry called out, turning on the light in the adjoining kitchen. Parvati moved like a shot and smacked the switch off again.

   “Are you crazy?” she snapped, staring at him in disbelief, hastily stubbing out her cigarette in the sink. “Do you want them to find us? We haven’t even checked the house properly – your parents could be in here looking just like the rest.”

   “Again, wishing I’d brought a shotgun,” said Terry, looking curiously round the living room. He caught his reflection in the large mirror above the fireplace, and they grimaced at each other as he pulled his beanie hat off, unstuck his sweaty hair from his head, then slumped into the comfy looking sofa. Hermione contemplated doing the same, but then reasoned if she sat down she might not get back up again.

   “My parents are not zombies,” growled Harry at Parvati, who scowled back.

   “Nobody’s a _zombie,_ ” she retorted, folding her arms. “Didn’t you see the blue lightening?”

   Harry frowned. “Yes, but-”

   “Yes but nothing – they’re under the Imperius Orbis Curse – it’s like the Imperius one but loads of people at a time, that’s why they’re so slow and thick, it’s less concentrated.”

   Everyone was staring at her, including Hermione. She was just going to give that answer herself and was a little put out.

   “What?” demanded Parvati. “You think after what happened last November I _wouldn’t_ take Advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts?” She scoffed and walked over to the window, peering out of the curtains. “They’re not dead, but they’re not exactly alive any more either. Only the person that cast the spell can take it off, and unless they do they’ll all be like that until they waste away.”

   “You mean die?” asked Harry in a hollow voice.

   Parvati nodded, but it was Hermione who answered. “They’ll starve to death,” she said in a small voice, choosing not to look at anyone, but focus on the floor instead. “They’ll just wonder around until they get too tired, then they’ll just lie down and die.” It made her feel sick thinking about all those families, a whole community, emptied of their personalities.

   “So they don’t want to eat our brains then?” asked Terry. Parvati shook her head.

   “But they can still infect us, make us like them, just by touching us.” She shuddered and looked out the curtains again. “They’re attracted to our energy.” Hermione sank to the floor. The weak sunlight was spilling in through the kitchen, making the living room a series of shadows and outlines. She leant against the wall by the kitchen door and pulled off her boots, sighing in relief as she massaged some feeling back into the balls of her feet.

   This is just like what happened to Harry, she thought ruefully. Wasn’t it bad enough to be in a parallel universe? Why did Godric’s Hollow have to turn into a monster movie too?

   Suddenly Parvati gasped and jumped back from the window. Terry jumped to his feet as she backed into him, rigid and shaking. “I saw – there was a few of them,” she whispered, he eyes fixed on the window. “They were on the road, I don’t think – I hope they don’t come this way. They won’t will they?” she almost pleaded to Terry, turning to face him. He squeezed her shoulders.

   “You said they were thick right? They’ll probably just walk right past,” he whispered reassuringly. Harry crept silently up to the window and squinted out the small gap the curtains made.

   “I think they’re gone,” he said. Hermione let out the breath she’d been holding and pulled her gaze away from the window. They really ought to start thinking of a game plan, they couldn’t just sit in the living room after all. She began to rub her feet again.

   It took her a moment to realise the pool of sunshine from the kitchen was only half the size it had been before.

   She froze and stopped breathing again. She didn’t want to, but very slowly she made herself turn her head to look. There in the kitchen, shuffling gradually and silently towards them, was a red headed woman in her late thirties. Lily Potter.

   She had her arms outstretched and her white eyes were unblinking. Unable to control herself, Hermione screamed and scrambled away from the possessed woman. The others whipped round and Parvati screamed too at the sight. “No!” cried Harry, aghast. Terry pulled them back into the corner of the room, away from the window and Lily. There was a small part of Hermione that was morbidly fascinated to see Harry’s long deceased mother in the flesh, but the large part that was telling her to run far, far away was winning out.

“No, no, no!” hissed Terry as the woman approached.

   “We have to get out of here,” said Hermione looking wildly around. They backed towards the entrance way, but as they passed the window it shattered down on their heads as several hands crashed through, groping widely. Hermione felt a sharp pain on her shoulder, then a burning sensation as the blood began trickling down. Parvati screamed again and bolted for the stairs, but her way was blocked.

   It could have been an older Harry, maybe in ten or twenty years time, but Hermione knew really it was James Potter, it had to be. Parvati ran straight into his outreached hands.

   _“NO!”_ screamed Harry, but it was too late. The second James’ bare hands touched her skin Parvati went rigid, teetering on the step she was on, and a flash of blue lightning jumped between them. Her eyelids fell, like she’d abruptly fallen asleep, and her shoulders sank. For a second nobody moved, and then her eyes, her milky white eyes opened as she let out a moan from the depths of her throat.

   “Parvati, no!” cried Harry and made to dash for his friend, but Terry grabbed his arm and hauled him back, seizing an umbrella from a stand as he turned back into the lounge. The people outside were still trying to get through the window but couldn’t work out the mechanics of it. They were cutting themselves up pretty badly on the glass but didn’t even seem to realise. Terry marched straight up to Lily Potter and swung the umbrella at her like a cricket bat, knocking her out of the way. Without speaking he snatched Hermione’s hand, and the three of them pelted into the kitchen, slamming and locking the door.

   Harry was absolutely shell shocked. “They’re not dead,” he croaked as Terry quickly scanned the room. “They’re not dead.”

   Terry shut the back door and locked that too. Lily must have come from the garden earlier, Hermione thought, and, after healing the cut on her shoulder, went over to put some protection spells on the doorway.

   “Harry, get a grip,” Terry said in a tone that was stern but soothing too. “We’re in serious trouble here.”

   “No,” said Harry, staring at the wall. “No that’s _his_ life, my parents aren’t dead, _his_ are.” Hermione realised with a jolt he was talking about her Harry. Terry took Harry by the shoulders and firmly turned him to face him.

   “No, you’re right, they’re not dead,” said Terry calmly and evenly to his friend as hands started scratching and banging on the other side of the door. “But we need to stay human long enough to save them. We need to get back to Hogwarts and warn them to send help asap. Okay? You with me mate?”

   The banging on the other side of the door was getting worse, but Harry managed to nod in agreement, and went someway to shaking himself out of his panic.

   “Yes, we have to help them,” he agreed. “Then everything will go back to normal.”

   “We have to get back to the car,” said Hermione matter-of-factly. “The Floo network is disconnected.”

   “Maybe we could fly?” suggested Harry, heading without thinking towards the kitchen door which Hermione thought was ill-advised. “Everyone’s a zombie, the Muggles won’t see us and brooms would be faster.” Hermione wasn’t sure he wasn’t becoming hysterical again. She wished with all her heart the real Harry Potter were here, someone who could help them get out of trouble, not cause more of it.

   “Unless the brooms are in here,” said Terry placatingly.   “Or out the garden, I’m not sure we can do that. I don’t think you’re getting back through the house Ziggy.”

   But Harry rested his hand unnervingly on the handle as the wood rattled and several moans reached them through the cracks. Why, cursed Hermione, hadn’t she put protection spells on that door first, rather than the back door that she’d been closest to?

   “It’s not safe Harry,” said Hermione. “Step away from the door and I’ll put some more substantial protection spells on it.”

   “This is all your fault!” He flared at her suddenly, clinging onto the knob with one hand and pointing at her with the other. “Yours, his, Malfoy’s, all of you!” He was looking manic and the commotion at the door was getting louder. “Why can’t you leave my family alone!”

   It was that moment that the top of the door chose to splinter, one of the panels fracturing, and Harry jumped back in shock. But he didn’t jump far enough. Several bloodied arms crashed through, including that of Parvati Patil, who seemed to have pushed her way to the front of the group. With a moan her skinny arm flung out, crackling with blue electricity, and groped for Harry’s face.

   His glasses went sailing to the tiled floorHe fared

as he gasped out in shock. The electrical current rippled all over his body, and he spasmed and dropped his head back.

   Terry swore, very loudly, and Hermione couldn’t blame him. “Oh no,” she found herself crying. “Oh no, oh no!”

   But Harry straightened up, his eyes now white as fresh snow, and he stepped towards them, his arms outstretched, his boot crunching on his glasses, shattering them.

   “Oh mate,” cried Terry. “Oh no, no.” He turned to Hermione, distraught. “What do we do? We have to help them!”

   Hermione steeled herself. “We can’t help them here,” she said, moving away as Harry took another shaky step.

   “We can’t just leave them,” argued Terry. “They could get hurt, they’ll probably hurt themselves for crying out loud.”

   Harry seemed steady on his feet now, and Hermione decided he’d probably done enough walking for now.

   _“Patrificus Totalus!”_ she screeched, and Harry stopped dead, mid-step. “Quick,” she said to Terry, her breathing fast and ragged as she manoeuvred around the now immobile Harry. “I need to put some spells up on the door, feel free to add any you know.”

   “No, we are _not_ leaving,” Terry insisted.

   Hermione started applying spells anyway. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “But we can’t help them here, we have to find who did this to them and stop them, for good. That’s the only way to get them back to normal.”

   Terry glared at her for a moment, then shook his head. “Fine,” he snapped, then began firing his own spells. Hermione added some more advanced ones, and those with their arms poking through – including Parvati – soon found themselves hitting against an invisible barrier.

   “Right,” said Terry, backing up to the garden door with a satisfied nod. “I’d say that was our cue to get the heck out of Dodge, wouldn’t you?”

 

***

 

   Draco Malfoy was suddenly aware he had stepped through a door, but when he turned to look back, the door was already closed. Alex dropped the grip he had on his hand with a loud “Phew!” and threw his arms around him. “Thank goodness for that, home sweet home.”

   He let go and skipped down the short entrance hall Draco was standing in, and darted off to the left. “Make yourself at home!” he called over his shoulder, and then Draco heard him calling “Woofsy? Woofsy come here boy, daddy’s home!”

   Draco stood and looked at his surroundings. The hall had dark wooden beams spaced evenly on whitewashed walls and running along the high ceiling. An old, simply constructed chandelier hung above his head, the fitting was tarnished gold and the flickering candles had almost dripped down to their bases. Paintings hung on the walls in between the beams, generally of pastoral landscape scenes, but the one to Draco’s right was a punk metal band thrashing on their instruments mid-concert. Draco could only just hear them, like the volume had been turned right down, but from what he could tell it sounded like a version of _God Save The Queen._ The lead singer, a man with a green spiky Mohawk winked at Draco before screaming into the microphone again.

   There was something slightly familiar about the place that Draco wasn’t sure of. He took a few steps forward, but stopped in his tracks when a West Highland White terrier came haring round the corner, his little pink tongue lolling out and his tail wagging so much Draco was amazing he could move his legs his backside was wiggling so much.

   “Woofsy!” he cried in surprise, bending down to great him. “Did Sarah look after you? Isn’t she a clever girl. Good boy, good boy.” The dog darted about, then flung himself on his back so Draco could tickle his tummy, which he did obligingly. He laughed. “Hey Alex!” he yelled out. “Guess who I found?”

   He scooped up the puppy and turned to head the direction the Watcher had gone, but he stopped still.

   Seamus Finnigan was standing in the doorway, holding onto the frame, looking apprehensive. “Hi Draco,” he said softly, a light smile tweaking at his lips.

   Draco blinked and Sir Woofsalot licked his hand. “Seamus?” he croaked. It had been so long since Draco had seen him, and whenever he’d thought of him these past ten months he hadn’t been able to shake the blood and the mud and the dead look in his vacant eyes. But now he looked just like he should do, better even. Like someone had taken Seamus and traced over him, smoothing out the imperfections; sharpening his jaw line, glossing his hair, easing his eyes into an ever to slightly rounder shape. Or maybe Draco was just remembering wrong?

   He was wearing a grey zipped up hoodie with the arms cut off, and a long sleeved black t-shirt underneath. His jeans were pale blue and his trainers brand new and expensive looking.

   Draco blinked again and tried to re-collect his thoughts. “I thought we were still in Limbo?” he stuttered. “Are we...is this another reality?” One where you’re a model? he added to himself.

   “No, no, we’re definitely still in Limbo,” said Seamus, smiling. He sighed and stepped forward, his right hand extended. “It’s good to see you again.”

   Draco let Sir Woofsalot down and took the proffered hand. “I don’t understand?”

   Seamus finished the shake and slipped his hands into the pouch of his zoodie. “It’s me,” he said grinning. “The Seamus of your reality, the one who died.”

   “Ah, _there_ you are,” cried Alex as he walked back into the hallway from behind Seamus. He scooped his dog up and planted a big, wet kiss on his forehead. Woofsy coughed and gave a quick all-body shake in response, before yelping up at Alex and wagging his tail from under his master’s arm. Alex looked between the two boys. “What are you doing out here?” he berated. “How uncivilised. Sit down at once, we need tea.”

   He ushered them into the room on the right where Sir Woofsalot had come from, and Draco recognised it immediately. “I’ve been here,” he exclaimed, astonished as he stared around the living room. The sofas by the massive fireplace, the coffee table covered in a tea set, the portraits hanging from the wall. Draco went to get a closer look at them.

   “Look, look!” said the woman in the bonnet who had spoken to him before, in his dream. “Ric, look! Draco’s back!”

   A man with soft brown hair, a long face and blue-grey eyes lent on his frame and folded his arms. He wore a red tunic with a gold lion emblazoned on the right breast pocket. “Told you,” he said kindly and the woman in the bonnet bobbed up and down with excitement, her chocolaty ringlets bouncing with her.

   “You have been here,” agreed Alex, pouring three cups of tea. “This is my home, you came here when you were comatose.”

   Draco couldn’t help but look down at himself. For the first time he realised he was wearing his own clothes again, not the other Draco’s. When had that happened? He ran his fingers along his t-shirt. If he was dreaming before, what was he now, really? Was he still alive?

   He shook his head and turned away from the portraits who were all staring down at him. “Seamus, are you dead?”

   “Oh yeah,” he said, sitting down on the sofa as Alex sank into the armchair, closing his eyes with a sigh and kicking off his navy pirate boots. “You saw me die.”

   “Then what...” Draco left the question hanging in the air, but he didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

   “I’m a Watcher now,” said Seamus proudly, dropping three sugar cubes into his tea. “Like Alex.” He swatted Alex’s feet and holy socks off of the coffee table with a frown, then beamed back up at Draco. “When Harry came to our world, he created a new reality. They needed a new Watcher for the UK, and they try and choose people who pass over as a result of the new reality coming into being.” He drummed on his knees. “I was thrilled to get the job.”

   Draco regarded him for a moment, then moved over to sit on the edge of the couch, on the arm furthest away from the two Watchers. “Why...” he tried to form the question correctly. “Why did you stay here, why not go to Heaven – or wherever everybody else goes,” he mumbled, aware he sounded very childish.

   Seamus shrugged and Alex opened his eyes. “I wanted to look after everybody,” answered Seamus. “This reality’s special, there won’t be any offshoots for a long, long time, until the effects of the dimensional crossover fade away.”

   “Like my reality,” chipped in Alex, and slapped Seamus on the knee, earning himself a scowl.

   “So, you’re mates?” asked Draco as Sir Woofsalot tore around the room like he was chasing the devil himself.

   “Partners!” cried Seamus.

   “Watson and Holmes!” agreed Alex.

   “Batman and Robin!” countered Seamus. Alex regarded him soberly.

   “We’ve discussed that,” he said evenly.

   Draco waved his hands and his head. “Okay, I get it,” he said. “So Seamus is like you, he helps out my world and you help out Harry’s.”

   The two Watchers nodded. “It’s been a little hectic the last few days,” said Alex dryly.

   “Oi!”

   Draco jumped up as a nasally voice shouted out from behind the sofa. He stepped back on instinct, eyes darting around. He hadn’t seen anyone approach. “I don’t think,” the little, petulant voice carried on. “That sounds much like you’re discussing my amulet!”

   Draco watched on in fascination as from around the back of the sofa waddled a small, red dragon, with blazing blue eyes, and a slightly burnt teddy bear in one hand.

   “Puff!” said Alex. “I’m _so_ delighted you are still here.” Draco sensed maybe he was being sarcastic.

   The dragon, Puff apparently, glowered impressively at the Watcher. “You are a liar and a thief,” he snarled.

   “Yes,” said Alex with mock contrition. “But such a handsome one.”

   “Amulet?” said Draco, suddenly remembering. “The amulet you gave Harry, the purple one?”

   “Yes,” said Alex with a nod.

   “The one that caused all the trouble?”

   Alex frowned and pulled at a thread from the gaping hole in the knee of his jeans. “Technically it was the other Horcrux that caused all the trouble,” he muttered. Draco swallowed his guilt – he hadn’t asked for a bit of Voldemort’s soul after all.

   “You seem,” said the dragon haughtily. “To have sidestepped the part where the amulet is _mine.”_

   Seamus rolled his eyes. “Oh give it a rest,” he said. “Anyway, I have news – not all of us were playing doctor to teddy bears whilst you lot were off Fixer-dodging.”

   Alex’s eyes widened at that, and he went over to one of his pulled curtains and twitched it to look outside. All Draco could make out was stars on a black, black sky. “Hmm, we’ll have to watch out for that,” he said, turning to look at Draco, then perched back on his armchair. Draco was still stood by the low-burning fireplace.

“What?” he said.

   “The Fixers,” elaborated Alex. “They might still be able to sense you, we’ll have to watch they don’t sneak up on you and gobble you up.” His tone was light but his eyes were dark. Draco’s stomach flipped over. Did it never end?

_“So,”_ said Seamus pointedly. “I was working on contacting the other three – Harry, Ron and Hermione. No really luck with Harry, but the other two-”

   “You spoke to them?” asked Draco, eager and incredulous to the same degree. “Are they okay?”

   Seamus waved his hands. “We know they’re okay – more or less – because Hermione is in our world, so I can see her, and we’ve managed to track down the American representative for where Ron is.”

   Ron was in America? That was weird.

   “They’re still managing to find an inordinate amount of trouble,” scoffed Seamus. “But they’re okay.”

   Puff blew onto the fire, meaning Draco had to move away from the sudden heat, and he watched the dragon curl up with his head on the coals. He placed his teddy safely on the cool stone mantel, then popped his little scaly thumb in his mouth and began to make snoring noises that were a little too loud to be believed.

   “But you talked to them?” pressed Draco. Seamus nodded.

   “Not Harry, not really, he thought it was the wind playing tricks on him.” He scratched the back of his head. “The thing is to get them unconscious, and Harry was only sleepy. Ron nodded off and Hermione nearly passed out, and I managed to get them to see me and say a few words, but they woke up before I could get much further.”

   Alex inclined his head. “It’s a start,” he said approvingly. “We need them to work out their Horcruxes though, they’ll be affecting them by now.” He though a second. “Well maybe not Hermione.”

   “In what way?” asked Draco, and Alex shrugged.

   “Mostly just grouchy – anybody would get fed up having to carry a little bit of Voldemort in their pocket.”

   Draco looked at the window with the closed curtains. Horcruxes, Fixers, baby dragons, his day was getting stranger and stranger. At least that terrible headache was gone. “So,” he said eventually. “What’s the plan?”

   “Well I think Severus has sent the letters to Harry, Ron and Hermione.” Alex stopped and frowned into the middle distance, then raised his right elbow so his forearm was waiting horizontally in front of his face. A grey homing pigeon suddenly flew into the room, cooing and shedding feathers. Draco jerked backwards in shock, and the bird landed on Alex’s waiting arm. It stuck its leg out obediently, and Alex unravelled a tiny strip of paper from it. “Yes, he has. And – oh!”

   Another bird soared in, a little more fervent than the last one, and crashed at Alex’s feet. He let the other bird go and scooped up the injured, flapping one before Sir Woofsalot could get a good sniff. He took another scrap of paper off the bird’s leg and read it.

   “Oh my!” he said, emphasising his received pronunciation. “Harry has already received his letter and activated it.”

   “What does that mean?” Draco asked, as Alex and Seamus got quickly to their feet.

   “It means Harry’s here,” said Alex, his face splitting into a large grin as he pulled his boots back on. “In Limbo. What do you say – shall we go find him?”

   Draco found himself matching Alex’s grin. “Well it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it?”

 

***

 

   Sarah Potter tripped backwards into Natalie McDonald and Blaise Zabini, expecting the cloud of Fixers to attack them. But the bodiless eyes just blinked, as another, then another pair opened up. The three girls held their wands up, waiting in suspense, but once the fifth set of eyes appeared, the smoky cloud began to drift away, heading towards the window.

   “What’s it doing?” hissed Sarah, and felt herself edge up the stairs, towards the opening behind the portrait.

   “Not sure,” said Natalie, joining her as they crept into the corridor. Blaise was a little way behind them, her breathing soft and shallow. “How did they get here?”

   Sarah shook her head. “Snape’s spell must have been a few seconds too late or something,” she whispered.

   “It’s like,” said Blaise faintly behind them. “They’re getting their bearings.” Sarah looked at the cloud, and Blaise was right. It was probing slowly around the window frame, investigating where it was open a crack on the right hand side.

   “Why don’t they become people again?” asked Natalie.

   Sarah frowned. “Not sure, maybe they can’t here, in the real world?”

   Suddenly, the Fixer swarm converged on the small gap in the window and dove through, disappearing in seconds. The three girls gasped and ran over to the window, and Sarah flung it open all the way. The cloud was rolling down the building, and once it reached the lawn it began flying away from the school.

   “No!” said Sarah in panic. “Where’s it going!”

   “We have to warn someone,” said Natalie, but Sarah was already opening the other side of the second story window.

   “No time,” she gasped. “Do either of you know that hover charm for people, I need to get down there.” At the school, people knew about the Fixers, how to try and fight them, but what if that mist made it to Hogsmeade? She dreaded to think.

   _“Mobilicorpus,”_ criedBlaise, taking her by surprise. She shot a few feet in the air, then raced down to the ground where she tumbled onto the grass and out of the spell. Natalie dropped beside her, then turned and performed the same charm on the scared looking Blaise.

   “You don’t have to come,” said Sarah sincerely, but she only half addressed them as she started running towards the cloud. It wasn’t going at a tremendous rate, but it was certainly already out of their spell-casting range.

   “You need help,” insisted Natalie, pelting along beside her. Blaise was a surprisingly good runner; it was her long legs Sarah supposed, but she too caught up and kept pace, her long hair billowing out behind her.

   “We won’t catch it like this,” said Sarah, stopping abruptly, and raised her wand up. _“Accio broomsticks!”_ she yelled out, mimicking Natalie from earlier. There was a crashing noise, and the three girls whipped their heads around to see the left-hand windows of the medical wing explode outwards, and three broomsticks come flying out towards them. “Oops,” said Sarah meekly, as Madam Pomfrey leant out of one of the shattered windows and yelled at them.   “SORRY!” Sarah shouted up at her as the brooms came to a halt and hovered by each of the students.

   She grabbed the nearest one to her and swung her leg over it. Just like at the Atrium in the Ministry, she felt a whole lot better once she was in the air.

   Natalie didn’t need telling twice, and was after Sarah in a second, but Blaise just looked at hers in horror. “You don’t have to come,” Sarah reminded her, rearing the broom up and darting after the Fixers.

   Natalie kept her company as she raced over the Hogwarts grounds. They managed to maintain pace with the cloud, but until they knew what it was up to Sarah didn’t really know how to attack it. She glanced back and was pleasantly surprised to see Blaise was behind them once again.

   “Where’s it going?” shouted Natalie over the whistling wind. Sarah shook her head. It had steered well away from the village and was just soaring over the Scottish highlands, gradually gaining speed.

   “A Muggle town?” she suggested, but Natalie shook her head too.

   “There aren’t any around here,” she explained. “Not for a good fifteen, twenty miles.”

   Sarah frowned at the cloud. It was angry looking somehow; darker, more turbulent. The eyes were still shining out like jewels in the mist, narrowed and malevolent. “Maybe it will just go that far, it seems stronger now.”

   “I don’t think it has to.” Blaise’s voice sounded reedy as she tried to be heard over the wind, but she was close enough to Sarah and Natalie now they were able to catch every word.

   “Why?” called back Natalie, but Blaise just pointed straight ahead.

   There was a train line clearly visible running horizontally several hundred feet in front of them, and a Muggle train powering across the horizon. “It’s going for the train!” cried Sarah in horror.

   As if it had heard her, the cloud put on a sudden burst of speed, moving slowly away from the girls. “Oh no you don’t,” growled Sarah, and leant into her broom, willing every last ounce of power from it.

   “If it gets on the train,” yelled Natalie from behind her. “How can we follow? It’s going so fast.”

   Sarah scanned the vehicle as they got closer. Natalie was right, they could try and open a door, but getting through it would be a nightmare. Then she saw the big windows either side of the train. Long, wide rectangles that would give them much more room to get on the train.

“We could blast the glass outwards?” she suggested. “And try and get through there?”

   “Go for first class,” Natalie called back without hesitation. “No one ever sits in there.”

   Sarah took a deep breath, and took one hand away from the broomstick and fished her wand out of her pocket. Concentrating, she aimed for the carriage with the just-visible ‘1st’ painted on it.

_“Expulso,”_ she said in a clear, strong voice. Every single window in first class exploded with unexpected force.

   “Whoa!” cried Natalie, impressed. Sarah blinked in surprise herself. Perhaps her magic was getting better with all this disaster happening around her.

   The train began to slow, dramatically, like someone had slammed the breaks on. “Why’s it stopping?” she asked the other two girls.

   “Who cares?” demanded Natalie. “It’ll be easier to get on to, let’s punch it.” She was right, Sarah knew it, and the cloud of Fixers was racing forwards at an alarming rate. She leant into the broom once more, expertly charging ahead the way her dad had taught her. Her muscles strained, her jaw began to cramp with tension, but all she could see was the Fixers creeping up on the slowing train.

   First class loomed ahead, and before she knew it, it was upon her. Sarah banked dramatically, and rolled herself through one of the now empty window panes. She crashed painfully into a set of seats and half landed with a cry on one of the tables before slamming into the carriage floor, her broom flinging from her hand onto the carpeted floor. For the second time that day she felt her lip split and tasted blood in her mouth.

   A man swore very loudly, but Sarah was already scrabbling to her feet, wiping blood away on her sleeve. The train was slowing but comparatively speaking it was still moving at quite a rate. She watched as Natalie sidled up to the carriage, then threw herself inside as well. “What’s going on!” demanded the same man who’d sworn at Sarah. He was broad shouldered, wide bellied with skin as dark as night. He wore a well made suit that was such a deep blue it was practically black, a white shirt and a pink tie. Beside him were two Asian men, Japanese probably. One with a think pair of black rimmed glasses looked shocked, but his companion seemed fascinated by all the action unfolding around him.

   Natalie stumbled to her feet and discarded her broom beside Sarah’s. The train was still slowing, but as Sarah ran to the jagged window frame she could already tell by looking down the length of the train that the Fixers must somehow already be inside as well, as they were now nowhere in sight.

   Blaise had sidled up to the slowing train and was eyeing up the windows apprehensively. “It’s okay,” urged Sarah, ignoring the businessmen spluttering behind her. “You can do it. Blaise bit her lip, and her eyes narrowed with that look of determination Sarah had become accustomed to over the past year, the simple motion bringing her a small thrill of hope that the Blaise she knew was lurking inside this wallflower. The Slytherin girl inhaled, then swerved inside the compartment, where Sarah caught her and helped her scramble off her broom and back onto almost steady ground.

   “Thanks,” she said with wide eyes and a small smile, before turning her attention to the shattered window edges. With a flick of her wand the glass slowly started to reassemble itself, shards flying back from where they’d landed several hundred feet back.

   The passengers in the carriage watched on in astonishment; their entrance could only have spanned twenty seconds and the flying broomsticks as well as windows magically repairing themselves had rendered them mute.

   For a moment a least.

   “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.” Sarah looked back and saw a woman in her early thirties with her hand still gripping onto the big, red emergency stop lever, that little pane of glass shattered on the floor too. Well that explained why the train had pretty much come to a stop. “Are you alright?” she asked Sarah, taking her by surprise. She had a voluptuous figure, like an old Muggle movie star, with a tumble of chocolaty curls and brown eyes with very long lashes. She wore heels, a pencil skirt and ruffled blouse. She let go of the alarm and stepped towards the girls, but Sarah was already moving.

   “Natalie!” she cried out, heading for the door. “Look after these people, make sure if any of those things get in, you blast them back.”

   “Where are you going?” Natalie called back, the train passengers staring at them, mouths open.

   Sarah grabbed Blaise’s hand, and she followed her obediently. “We’re going to find those monsters and stop them hurting anyone else.” She wacked the button and the door slid open painfully slowly, but she was squeezing through it regardless before it was even half way done.

   Most of these seats were full of families, students, the occasional couple. Half of them stood as Sarah and Blaise sprinted through the aisle. “What’s happening?” cried one woman with a broad Scottish accent.

   “Is it a bomb!” squealed a girl with blue hair and dungarees. This made several other people wail and cry, but Sarah ignored them, her hand still glued to Blaise’s. The Fixers weren’t in there, so she just charged on for the next carriage.

   A young man was waiting at the end though, in the space next to the door. “Miss,” he said nervously as she scrambled past the passengers towards him. He wore camouflage head to toe with a beret covering licks of red hair, and was obviously some kind of Muggle soldier. Sirius had told Sarah about them, and she had a panicked moment wondering if he was armed with one of those horrendous ‘gun’ things. “Miss,” he repeated, holding out his shaking hands. He could only have been a few years older than herself. “I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”

   Which she did. Blaise ran into her, but Sarah stuck her feet to the train’s now stationary floor, and pointed her wand right at the young man’s face. She really didn’t feel good about it, but she didn’t have any other choice.

   He looked at the wooden stick confused. “You can either help me,” growled Sarah, anxiously trying to look through the door to the next compartment. “Or get the _Hell_ out of my way, do you understand?”

   Even she was surprised by the force behind her voice, and the boy’s eyebrows raised into his beret.

   “I can’t let you hurt anyone,” he said, swallowing, and Sarah had to give him credit.

   “I’m trying to _save_ them,” she said, panic really rising in her now. She was certain the next compartment was filling with smoke. “Please,” she begged. “Please let me by.”

   The soldier looked behind him where she was staring, and realised something wasn’t quite right. “You can follow me,” he instructed, suddenly efficient sounding, and Sarah decided that was better than nothing.

   The red-headed squaddie opened the first set of doors, then the second more cautiously. “Smoke!” he called out, but Sarah could already see that. She was just surprised by what it was doing.

   “Why is it...just hanging there?” she asked Blaise. Because that’s exactly what it was doing; hovering above all the fearful passengers’ heads, the pairs of black eyes half closed. “Why isn’t it attacking the people, what’s it doing?”

   Blaise screwed up her face and scrutinized the cloud of Fixers. “Panting,” she said eventually.

   “What is that?” asked the soldier, horrified as one of the pairs of eyes moved within the cloud and glared at him.

   “Dangerous,” snapped Sarah immediately. “You hear that?” she called out to the full carriage. “That thing could kill you, so do not let it touch you!” A fully grown man to her right whimpered, but Sarah couldn’t honestly blame him.

   She turned back to Blaise. Now they had the thing, or things depending on how you looked at it, she had no idea what to do. Alex had said that blasting them with magic would keep them at bay, but he didn’t say anything about how exactly to kill a Fixer.

   “We need to get them away from the people,” Blaise said quietly, almost reading Sarah’s mind.

   “Outside?” she suggested, but then changed her mind. “No, back to first class, we can get those people out and try and contain it there.”

   “Until what?” asked Blaise.

   Sarah looked at her wand. “The Ministry must know I used magic out of school,” she said as people stared. They must have thought she was crazy. “Or one of the teachers might have noticed – whatever the case we can make sure that thing’s secure then contact everyone we can think of to come help us.”

   Help them do what she still had no idea, but they would at least know some cracking protective spells, of that she was sure. The Fixers could only have been on the train a minute or two, how long until they got their energy back, how long until her and the other two girls were no longer a match for them?

Blaise nodded, and Sarah crouched down and began to walk along the aisle. “Stay there, she hissed at her. “I’ll herd it from the other end.” The passengers edged away from her in their seats as she passed them, like she was contaminated, and she nervously ran her tongue bar against the back of her teeth. You can do this, she thought, ignoring her shocking lack of magical skills and the terror and exhaustion. You’re a fierce white wolf with red eyes, you won’t let it hurt these people. Look at what you did to those windows, she suddenly remembered. You’re not as helpless as you think.

   The cloud twitched about her head, but without any real intention to go anywhere. Sarah wondered if Blaise was right, was it resting after the chase to the train? She still wasn’t convinced it was all that strong in the real world; if the Fixers could move the rooms of Hogwarts about in Limbo but not here, then it would make sense if they couldn’t make people shapes out of themselves, or surely they would have done it already?

   “What is that thing?” demanded a young Arabic man as Sarah crept past him.

   A woman clutching a girl of about eight actually leant closer to Sarah as she approached her seat. “Let the young man deal with it,” she said, frightened, her eyes flicking to the soldier at the end of the carriage. “You’re too young, he knows what he’s doing.”

   Sarah scowled. “He doesn’t know a thing,” she growled, then shouted back at her new friend. “Hey mate!”

   There was a pause, then he replied; “Yes?”

   “You keep these people calm, you hear me? Keep them safe, they won’t get hurt if it doesn’t touch them, so you can look after them for me, yeah?”

   There was another pause. “Yeah,” he said, then loudly, more confidently. “Yes ma’am.”

   “Good man,” she muttered, almost at the end of the carriage, the Fixer swarm still twitching like a cloud ready to burst into a torrent of thunder and lightning. In fact, Sarah realised, there was still a storm outside brewing, like when Harry and the others had leapt universes, or her and Draco in their own world. She shook her head and pushed the weather from her mind. If it rained, it rained. It was obviously because Snape had sent the letters over or something, just a sign something had crossed dimensions.

   Or maybe someone had got a letter, she thought with a thrill of hope. Maybe someone was _about_ to cross dimensions, to come home! The thought filled her with optimism like a hot air balloon and spurred her on.

   She made it to the small cluster of people standing by the doors who edged away from her. Why did this train have to so pack? Sarah lamented. “What are you going to do?” asked a young Chinese woman with several piercings similar to Sarah’s and very long black hair. Her tone wasn’t panicked like the others, more pragmatic.

   “It’s okay,” rasped Sarah, her heart beating in her ears. “We’re going to make it leave. Ready Blaise?”

   She squeaked and Sarah took that for a yes.

   “Mate?” she called at the soldier.

   “Rob,” he called back. “And I’m ready ma’am.” Rob stood up a little straighter and called out to the passengers. “I need everyone to keep as far down in their seats as they can, and not move.”

   The people squirmed down into their foot wells, or lied down across the two seats, crying and muttering or from the few Sarah could see, just staring straight ahead, switched off.

   “You too,” she said to the young Chinese woman and the others behind her. “As far away as you can.”

   “That’s it, you’re doing great,” said Rob soothingly.

   “Rob,” Sarah called out to him again, her wand slippery in her sweating hand. “Move to the next compartment, get them to do the same.”

   The soldier nodded and moved through the doors, leaving Sarah to stare up at her foe. It was only then did she realise all five pairs of eyes were glaring down at her, waiting for her to make a move.

_“Expulso!”_ she bellowed, and the spell flew from her wand.

   People screamed, and the cloud jerked several feet away from her. “It’s working!” she yelled at Blaise. The other girl held her wand up, and for the second time Sarah saw a look on her face that belonged to the Blaise of her home world. It was confidence.

   _“Accio Fixers!”_ she said loudly, and the cloud was suddenly swished all along the carriage and over her head.

   “Yes!” cried Sarah, and ran back down the aisle to join her. The cloud was agitated now, that was easy to see. It jerked about , and Sarah couldn’t help but wonder if the five entities within it were trying to pull in different directions.

_“Accio Fixers!”_ triedBlaise again, but the cloud only moved a few feet, already adapting to the incantation.

   _“Aguamenti,”_ Sarah shouted, firing the most random spell she could think of, and a jet of water spurted from her wand, making the Fixers twitch even further up the carriage, edging back towards first class where they had left Natalie. Unfortunately, this also doused several passengers in the process. “Sorry!” Sarah cried out to them as they squealed.

   Blaise coaxed the swarm over hers and Sarah’s head and through the doors with several other spells, deflecting its attempts to dart at the windows. Sarah’s heart was racing. They still had to get it through the next compartment without it deciding it was hungry enough to go for a passenger. The one that had been outside the Slytherin common room had probably only been in contact with Marcus for ten, maybe fifteen seconds, and that had been enough to knock him unconscious.

   “Blaise,” Sarah called out as the other girl made her way past the doors. They were greeted by alarmed shouts and cries from the passengers they had run by previously. Sarah ignored them, leaving Rob to shout at them to stay down. It must have been his uniform, because everyone did as they were told, and hunkered down in their seats.

   “Yes?” replied Blaise, her voice only wavering a little. Sarah was totally in the other carriage now, and could see the doors to first class at the other end. “Do you know any protection spells you could put up over the people, like a force field?” She felt silly saying it, but she couldn’t think of a better way to describe what she meant.

   Blaise frowned, thinking hard. Sarah saw Natalie peering back at them from first class, and she tried to signal at her to open the doors in between firing spells at the Fixers.

   _“Protego!”_ cried Blaise suddenly, and a golden haze shot from her wand and hovered above the passengers, who gasped in surprised. She did the same on the other side, but by the time she had finished on the left, the original spell on the right was already fading. “It’s not really designed to last too long,” she explained.

   “Just keep doing it,” said Sarah as the cloud was becoming impatient. It jerked about, showing interest in the people below it. Sarah was doing her best to fight it back, but it was definitely reacting less to the spells she was using over and over, she need fresh ones. Even Blaise’s _Accio_ one had stopped working completely, which was frustrating as that was certainly the quickest way to get the thing moving.

   The doors to first class opened, and the four passengers that had witnessed the glass shattering were ushered out by Natalie, all of them eyeing up the Fixers in trepidation. She motioned for the others to crouch down, which the black businessman was not happy about, but they did it anyway, leaving Natalie free to join in with the spell casting, inching the cloud along, getting closer to the empty carriage ahead.

   How long had they been on the train? thought Sarah fretfully. It could only have been a few minutes but she had expected the Ministry or at least a teacher to have been there by now. The Fixers were definitely getting more boisterous, she noticed nervously.

   She should have guessed what was about to happen.

   Blaise erected the shield charms again, and then again; by now the Fixers had worked out the people below weren’t with their efforts. But then it saw another option.

   With an unexpected burst of speed, the cloud launched forwards towards Natalie, but it wasn’t Natalie it was after. It was after the only person who was not blanketed by Balise’s protection charm, the only person outside of it not to have a wand, the person who had moved ahead to calm the passengers as the Fixers moved over their heads.

   “NO!” screamed Sarah as the swarm enveloped Rob, the soldier who’d been helping them, who began thrashing around in panic. “Blaise, do something!”

   She fired a quick succession of spells at him, that did little to nothing. “Stop moving!” she cried at the man as the protective spell faded over the other passengers. They were screaming and clawing along the seats, trying to get down the aisle and away from the cloud as it writhed around the flailing soldier. His beret flew off, revealing red hair plastered to his head as he gasped and grimaced in distress.

   Passengers were shoving past Sarah in a fit of self-preservation, but some were rooted in their seats, crying out at Rob and the witches, shouting at the cloud to stop its assault. “We have to drag him out of there!” Sarah cried, but the Fixers wouldn’t let them near enough.

   She could see Rob was getting tired as she fired yet another ineffective spell at the Fixers.   “Stop moving!” yelled Blaise again, her head snapping back and forth in panic. “You’re making it worse!”

   Natalie fired a purple curse that made some of the cloud disperse, but Rob dropped exhausted to his knees, his eyes glazing over.

   “We have to get it OFF him!” yelled Sarah over the baying crowd. She feared the Fixers were working out that the passengers weren’t protected by Blaise’s spell any more as they scrambled back up the carriage, and would soon turn on them too. Where was the Ministry, hadn’t they cast enough spells yet to get their attention?

   “Is first class empty?” Blaise asked suddenly.

   “Yes!” cried Natalie, and Blaise didn’t hesitate anther second.

   _“Alohomora!”_ she screamed at the doors, and they were forced open far quicker than they had ever been before in their existence. _“Deprimo!”_ she then yelled, and the cloud was whipped away from Rob the soldier. His eyes fluttered shut and he keeled over.

   “No!” rasped Sarah, rushing towards him as Blaise used her new spell to fling the Fixers into the next carriage.

   _“Colloportus,”_ said Blaise, locking the door. She was trembling, her long hair a crazy halo around her head, her eyes not blinking. Sarah dropped down and pulled the soldier to her.

   “Rob?” she whimpered, stroking his red hair from his eyes.

   “Is he dead?” Sarah was surprised to look up and see the woman who had pulled the emergency stop in first class. She was crouched down by the outer door, a laptop, a notebook, a shiny black handbag and a big polystyrene cup of coffee clutched to her frilly blouse. She hadn’t scrambled past her like so many of the others had.

   Blaise was still firing spells at the other compartment, containing the Fixers from the outside world. _“Protego Totalum,”_ she stuttered, tears rolling down her face.

   “I don’t know,” said Sarah to the woman. “He doesn’t look good.”

   The passengers that were left had stopped screaming now the Fixer cloud was gone, and some of them were creeping back to check on the man – the boy – who’d been looking after them. The woman discarded her belongings haphazardly and crawled over as gracefully her pencil skirt would allow her.

   She took her two fingers and pressed them firmly into Rob’s neck, but her face fell. “I can’t feel a pulse.”

   The girl in the dungarees with blue hair hiccupped down a sob and another man swore and punched a chair. Sarah realised, like Blaise, she was shaking all over.

   The woman pulled Rob out of her arms and laid him awkwardly on the floor. She bunched both her hands on top of each other, then began pressing on his chest. “Come on,” she whispered. “Come on sweetheart.” Was she trying to get his heart beating? Sarah wondered numbly as someone behind her started crying in earnest.

   “Blaise,” she said, remembering how he’d helped Marcus back in the Slytherin Common Room. “Can you help too?”

   Blaise took a look at him, then shook her head. “Not if his heart’s stopped.”

   “Then I’ll start it,” rasped the woman between poundings, getting out of breath. “Seventeen, eighteen.”

   Natalie came and stood by Sarah, wiping away tears. The woman kept up with her pumping and counting until she reached thirty, then blew into Rob’s mouth in two long, strong breaths. She resumed the pumping, the minutes dragging on.

   “I think,” said Blaise slowly and thickly. “It’s over.”

   “No,” she growled between twenty three and twenty four. “No, come on hun, just breath for me.”

   Sarah looked into first class, where the Fixer cloud was whirling around furiously, enraged with being trapped. There were darker swirls now, tendrils of something a little more solid looking. Sarah balled her hands together and tried not to panic. They were trapped, they couldn’t hurt anyone else. For now.

   “He needs a doctor,” said a balding man in a suit, the woman nodded her head frantically. She was on her fifth round of breathing and pounding, and her forehead had a sheen of sweat.

   “He was exposed for too long,” said Blaise, her voice so soft Sarah almost didn’t hear it. “He didn’t stand a chance without any inherent magic to repel them, like Marcus.” Sarah hadn’t thought of that; of course if spells scared the Fixers off then the natural magic in witches’ and wizards’ bodies might do the same. Poor Rob had nothing like that.

   The woman looked up at her, her breathing slowing. “What?” she asked as more people began to cry for the boy Rob. “No, he needs an ambulance, they could helicopter one over.” She jerked her head over to her expensive looking handbag. “I have a mobile phone, call 999.”

   Sarah nodded and knelt down to take the soldier’s clammy hand. “No, okay, we’ll get help, we’ll-”

   “What’s going on in here!”

   Sarah turned and looked up the aisle to see a conductor in a blue uniform forcing his way angrily past the people milling around. He had a round belly and a mop of soft brown hair, neither of which made him look all that intimidating. Her jolt of hope that the Ministry had finally got to them died quicker than it had arrived.

   “Who pulled the emergency stop? You’re looking at a hefty fine I can tell you that.”

   “I did,” said the curvy woman curtly, looking up but never pausing in her pumping of Rob’s chest. His mouth dropped open a little as she shook her hair out. “My name’s Rose Gillan. The windows in our carriage exploded, and then we were attacked by a killer mist monster, but if you want to fine me, go right ahead.”

   She sounded like a teacher telling off a naughty student, and the ticket inspector took a small step back. “What’s wrong with that man?” he asked in a shaky voice. “What do you mean a monster?”

   Sarah was still holding Rob’s hand, and she turned to look past Blaise’s legs into first class.

   She almost screamed.

   A fully formed male Fixer was standing on the other side of the doors, grinning at her with its dead, black eyes.

   Natalie followed her line of sight, and actually did let out a scream, causing the rest of the passengers to look too.

   “There’s someone still in there!” cried the girl with blue hair, making a dash to open the door. But Blaise slammed both her hands onto the train’s corridor walls.

   “No,” she said quietly, and the blue haired girl turned back to throw a questioning look at Sarah.

   “That’s what the cloud looks like when it’s not a cloud,” she said loudly, stroking Rob’s face. His skin was so grey it made her want to cry, she should never have let him get involved. “It will still hurt you.”

   “You’re telling me,” scoffed the conductor in a strong Glaswegian accent. “That that fellow with the contact lenses in there is, what? A ghost? A wee monster come to gobble us up?”

   “What the HELL do you think happened to Rob?” Sarah bellowed, letting go of the boy’s hand and scrabbling to her feet. “Don’t be a silly _Muggle.”_ She hated herself instantly for being prejudiced, but they didn’t understand, more people were going to die if they didn’t listen to her.

   “It just,” croaked Natalie, staring at the soldier. “Swarmed all around him, like bees. It wouldn’t let him go.”

   “We’re out of our depth,” said Sarah, her hands still trembling horribly, her wand gripped tightly in her right. “We need help, I don’t understand why the Ministry hasn’t come already.”

   “Get my phone!” barked Rose more forcefully. “We should call the police, the army-”

   “No,” said Sarah, alarmed, and turned to Blaise. “We can’t risk any more Muggle lives. Can you send a Patronus to Snape, tell him we’re on the-” she swung around to the conductor. “What train? Where are we?”

   The guard spluttered at her. “Why are we listening to a little goth girl?” he demanded. “I am in charge here missy.”

   “This man may already be dead!” yelled Sarah. “We don’t have the time!”

   “The 13:35 from Keith to Aberdeen,” breathed Rose, and Sarah noticed as she said the Scottish towns just how English her accent was.   She paused to blow another two breaths into Rob’s mouth. “We’re probably just about by Dufftown.”

   “Blaise, tell the Professor to get here right now. And,” she suddenly thought to add. “To bring the stuff for my spell.”

   Blaise nodded without question and conjured a little kitten from her wand.

   “My God,” said the inspector as some people gasped, or even went so far as to cross themselves on their chests.

   The kitten Patronus listened to Blaise as she whispered her instructions, then sped off in a silvery flash. The guard watched it go in disbelief, but the woman Rose was solely focused on her efforts with Rob. “Why can’t we call the police?” she asked.

   “We don’t need to put any more lives in danger,” replied Sarah. “In fact,” she addressed the conductor. “If you want to do something useful, get those passengers as far away from this carriage as possible, back them up.”

   The less magic everybody witnessed, she decided, the better. And whilst she trusted Blaise’s spells to hold, she wanted more distance between the Fixers and their dinners.

   The conductor looked uncertain but his passengers that were left were making the decision for him and all moving into the next compartment, some of them leaning over seats to grab their bags, others practically running to get out.

   “Is that boy dead?” asked the guard, looking down at Rob. Sarah swallowed and looked at Natalie, Blaise and Rose, who didn’t show any sign of leaving with the others, as she was still pumping on Rob’s chest.

   She felt a shudder run through her entire body. It was her fault, all her fault this man was dead. “He’s not breathing,” she said, holding tightly on to her voice. “He was trying to help and those things attacked him.”

   She was too scared to look properly, but out of the corner of her eye she could see there were now two Fixers grinning down at her through the glass doors. They had to get rid of them, send them back to Limbo. But they needed Alex to tell them how to fight them, not just keep them at bay, they needed to banish them for good.

   “Alex?” she asked aloud, looking up to the ceiling of the train. The only ones left in the carriage were her school mates, Rose and the conductor. From the looks on their faces, they all must have thought she’d lost the plot. “Alex we need help, what do we do?”

   There was a commotion to her right, and Sarah jumped, thinking Alex had appeared to answer her prayers. But it was Severus Snape who stood before them, Madam Pomfrey behind him, both with looks of horror mixed with anger on their faces.

   “Miss McDonald!” cried the school nurse. “Miss Zabini, what on Earth is going on?” She rushed over to Rob on the floor as she spoke, dropping to her knees as Rose continued with shuddering gasps to pound on the young soldier’s chest. “Oh you poor dear,” said Pomfrey, fretting over Rose as well as Rob. “You can stop that now.”

   “He needs,” breathed Rose, sweat running down her face, plastering strands of hair down. “A hospital.”

   “I know dear,” said Pomfrey. “Let go now and I’ll take him.”

   “Out of nowhere,” stuttered the conductor. Sarah had forgotten he was there, but he was staring at Professor Snape in terror. “They came from nowhere.”

   Madam Pomfrey took hold of Rose’s hands and lifted them off of Rob’s chest. “I’ve got him, it’s okay,” she said with a smile, and the two of them disapparated.

   Rose inhaled so sharply she began to cough. “Where’d they go!” she shrieked, turning to Sarah. “What happened, where’d she go!” She scrambled to her feet and looked up and down the train, realising that they had been joined by Professor Snape. “Who are you?”

   Snape looked at Sarah coldly, but that was generally how he looked she felt so wasn’t too put out. “I’m here to help,” he said slowly. “Now I see why the Ministry was so confused, when did you go off campus? They couldn’t tell where the underage Magic was coming from.”

   As if on cue, several members of the Ministry appeared in the train carriage. The conductor gave up and just slumped down in the nearest seat, but Rose’s big brown eyes flicked between all of them. “W-what?” she stuttered. “What’s happening?”

   Most of the officials darted in to the adjoining carriage, presumably to start wiping people’s memories, but one, an older Indian man in a turban and maroon robes, turned to Snape.

“Is this the girl?” he asked, and Snape nodded. Sarah suddenly panicked, stumbling over her feet and back into Blaise and Natalie.

   “What did you tell them?” she snapped at Snape, her heart thumping. Did they know she was from an alternate reality, had he blown he cover? He’d had no right.

   “Everything,” said Snape practically, answering her question. “After what happened to the school we had to.”

   “But we only want to help,” assured the Indian man. He had a silvery triangular beard and very white teeth that gleamed when he smiled. Sarah tried to control her breathing. “We want to get you home and contain the creatures.”

   “They’re already contained,” challenged Natalie, pointing to first class. The people from the Ministry couldn’t have helped but notice that there were now three fully formed Fixers standing and grinning by the door. They were all in the standard black trousers, white shirts and black braces, trilbies and cigarettes hanging from their mouths. “Blaise got them in there and threw up a load of spells.”

   “But we don’t know what to do now?” said Blaise, pulling at a strand of her long brown hair.

   “I’ve got an idea,” admitted Sarah. Because she did. She decided to ignore the fact the Ministry knew about her, so what? It was time for her to go home anyway.

   “Did you bring the spell ingredients?” she asked Snape, who nodded. Sarah licked her lips. She’d been toying with the idea since the Fixers had latched on to Rob. “Good,” she said, pushing away her doubts. “How long will it take to prepare?”

   “Minutes,” admitted Snape. “It’s mostly already finished. What have you got planned?”

   Sarah looked at Natalie and Blaise, then at Rose watching on. “You’re going to send me back,” she explained slowly. “When I’m in there.” She raised her arm and pointed to first class.

   “You can’t go in there!” shrieked Natalie. “They’ll get you!”

   Sarah blew out a long lungful of air. “That’s the idea.”

   “To what purpose?” asked Snape, and Sarah once again found herself looking up to the train’s ceiling.

   “I’m hoping,” she said, a little louder than her normal voice. “That Alex is paying attention.” She let that hang in the air, looking from side to side. “I’m hoping that if I walk in there, and you work the spell the second they swarm me, as I’m travelling home they’ll be pulled with me, and Alex can catch the Fixers.” She swallowed. “That’s what I’m hoping.”

   “Who are you talking to?” asked Natalie.

   “I can’t let you,” said Snape. “I can’t, you could get hurt, or worse.” Sarah looked at him, feeling how strange it was to get such concern from this man. He hated her dad, in this world and her own, but yet there was something very palatable in the way he talked to her. It was almost like affection.

   “I don’t see any other way to get rid of them,” she said. “Look, I don’t want them to suck out my life force or however it is they kill you.” She felt her voice tremble and looked at the floor where Rob had been lying. “But we can’t let them loose, they’ll kill anyone they can find. At least I’m a witch,” she assured, turning to Blaise. “I’ll have more protection against them than Rob, right.”

   Blaise looked nervous. “I think so,” she said, before taking a breath and strengthening her shoulders back. “Yes.”

   “Do you really believe it will work?” asked the Ministry official.

   No, Sarah wanted to say. I have absolutely no idea and this could very well kill me. “Yes,” she said out loud. “It has to.”

   Snape turned to fetch an old fashioned looking doctor’s bag that must have arrived with him and Madam Pomfrey. He undid the buckles and flipped the top flap of the old tan leather open, and began removing flasks and boxes of ingredients. Rose watched on with her mouth hanging open, and it was then the Indian man from the Ministry seemed to notice her.

   “Oh,” he said, looking around for a colleague but he was alone. He decided to go ahead by himself anyway. “Miss, I think we’d better get you seen to, would you follow me?”

   Rose realised it was her he was addressing, then folded her arms. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said stubbornly. “You people appeared out of thin air, there’s a mist monster trying to kill people, not to mention I have no idea what happened to that soldier boy.”

   “Yes,” insisted the Indian man. “But if you come with me I can explain all that and get you on your way.”

   Rose looked at Sarah, unsure. “She seems scared of you,” she said, nodding her head in Sarah’s direction. “I’d rather stick around until this is all sorted out.”

   Sarah turned to the man. “Can’t you let her stay until we do the spell?” she asked. She wasn’t sure why, but she felt better with this Muggle looking out for her.

   “It doesn’t really make a difference when we perform the charm,” said Snape, busy with his potion. From what Sarah remembered of the incantation it looked pretty much complete. “If the young lady wishes to remain for now and she won’t impede my work, I see no problem.”

   Sarah felt sorry knowing that Rose’s memory would eventually be wiped, but she looked happy now she was being allowed to stay.

   “Okay then,” sighed the Indian man. “Severus, how long until the potion is complete, those creatures don’t look like they are going to stay put much longer.”

   Sarah turned and saw that all five of the Fixers had taken human form again; two women and three men shapes.

   “What spells are currently in place?” asked the Ministry man.

   Blaise began to explain what magic she’d performed, and the two walked over to the door to inspect her work. Natalie took Sarah’s hand and squeezed it, but Sarah just watched Snape work on the potion.

   “Are you,” said Rose slowly after a time. “Witches?”

   Sarah waited for Snape to respond, but he just carried on with his work. “We are,” she admitted, figuring the Ministry was going to Obliterate her anyway. “But the guys are called wizards.”

   Rose looked down at the wand in Sarah’s grasp, and rested her hand on her frilly blouse. “That’s unbelievable,” she breathed. “Who would have thought?”

   “There’s a lot you wouldn’t believe,” Sarah said with a sad laugh.

   “Miss Potter I think we are ready to go.”

   Sarah turned to Snape as he moved away from his work. He had a sealed roll of parchment in his hand, the mark of Slytherin on the silver wax. “Is that a letter?” she asked.

   “Yes,” said Snape neutrally, handing it over to her. “It is also the vessel for the return spell, it seems like a tradition now.” He managed a small smile, which looked out of place on his face. Sarah looked down at the silvery wax. “I would appreciate,” he concluded. “If you were to wait until you have returned home safely to open it.”

   Sarah nodded, inhaling slow, steady breaths. “I’ll need help,” she admitted, her attention turning back towards the Fixers. “Keeping them away from the door.” She knocked her tongue bar against the sides of her mouth. “I think they should only be on me for a second or two before you activate the spell.”

   “Agreed,” said Snape.

   Blaise and the man from the Ministry had finished talking about her spells and were watching them talking. Now the moment had arrived, Sarah felt all her old fears come rushing back. What if she didn’t make it home, what if she ended up in another universe, or much, much worse – somewhere in between? Now she knew Limbo existed the possibility of being stranded there was all the more realistic.

   “Okay,” she said, trying to keep her breathing steady. She gave Natalie a weak smile. “Goodbye, I guess.”

   Natalie bit her lip. “I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said, her eyes on the floor. “I think we’d make good friends.” Sarah couldn’t help but smile.

   “We do,” she promised. “Tell Harry about what happened when he gets back – he can tell you more about my world.”

   Rose’s eyebrows seemed lost in her sweep of wavy brown hair. “Thanks for all your help,” Sarah said to her, and then she turned to Blaise by the doors. “Take care of yourself,” she said sincerely. “You’re much braver than you think, and,” she added, with a smile. “You’d look really great with short hair – why don’t you try cutting it?”

   Blaise stared at her through the curtains of dark hair hanging either side of her face, then threw her arms around her in a fierce hug.

   “Thank you,” she whispered. “Good luck.”

   “I really would appreciate,” said the Ministry man. “If I could just ask you one or two-”

   “Tough,” snapped Sarah, walking by him and facing the door. The Fixers grinned manically back at her, the cigarettes clamped between their teeth curling smoke around their heads. “Oh Alex,” she breathed out. “I really hope you’re paying attention.”

   “Miss Potter are you ready?” asked Snape. She looked over her shoulder.

   “Yes,” she replied as confidently as she could. “Thank you for everything, it was nice to meet you.”

   “The pleasure was all mine,” said Snape, raising his wand. “On my mark, open the door.”

   Sarah clutched the parchment in one hand and her wand in the other. She tried to imagine herself as a white wolf, but she was so scared the image wouldn’t come. What if she died, what if she never saw her family again?

   She didn’t have a choice. “Let’s do this,” she whispered, willing the tears not to fall from her eyes.

   Rose stepped backwards as the witches and wizards in the room raised their wands to join Sarah and Snape. “Now!” barked Snape.

   _“Alohomora!”_ she cried, and the door slid open.

   A barrage of colourful spells soared through the entrance into first class, slamming into the Fixers and scattering them across the carriage. Sarah ran down the aisle, her heart hammering in her ears. It didn’t take long for the monsters to pick themselves up again, their outlines a little blurry now, but she could feel them seizing her up as they stood.

   “Come on,” she murmured to herself. “Come on, come get me.” But they were just looking between her and the doors to the other carriage, so she filled her lungs and screamed. _“Come and GET me!”_

   It did the trick. The five Fixers rallied, floating and dispersing around her like ghosts. And then they swarmed. Sarah jerked in shock, feeling like she’d just had a bucket of ice water tipped over her head, and all she could see was smoke.

   “Now!” she heard somebody yell.

   A bright light overcame her vision and she squeezed her eyes shut as thunder rolled over her head. The carriage shook under her feet, and she heard herself screaming Alex’s name.

   And then everything was black.


	6. Disturbia (Part Two)

Chapter Four - Part Two

 

   Ron leant his head back against the cool white tiles. He moved from side to side slowly, pressing his temples onto the ceramic. It didn’t dissipate the headache entirely but it did ease it a little.

   “Snap!” shrieked Abbey as another loud bang resonated in the small room. Ron winced; that wasn’t helping.

   The four teenagers were sitting in a rather musty storage room behind the Thunderbird girls’ changing rooms of Salem Academy. There were baskets of balls like the ones Bobbie the jock had been tossing around on the stairway, brooms that looked as tatty and as well used as the ones at Hogwarts, odd bits of kit that matched Abbey’s, as well as purple robes and battered catchers mitts and bats. According to Abbey, only her house’s Quadpot and Cheerleading teams were aware of this room, and only the captains knew the password. After discovering that she was, in fact, not the captain though, Abbey flat out refused to divulge how she had learnt how to get in.

   No matter how many times it happened (which was a lot) Chris didn’t stop jumping out of his seat every time Abbey matched a pair of cards and they let out a little explosion. It didn’t appear that he was all that familiar with the game anyway, and an exploding version wasn’t helping his concentration. He seemed to be enjoying himself though.

   _“I’ll_ deal the next hand,” he announced confidently, as if this would increase his chances of winning.

   Ron wasn’t sure how long they were planning on camping up in the cramped room, but at least he’d been able to get himself comfy on a pile of robes. There was even a small kitchen unit that Abbey had been able to whip up some tea for him (and coffee for everyone else) and little cheese toasties. Fed, watered, and reasonably safe for the moment, he was able to relax his mind and let it wonder.

   He looked over at A.J. sitting beside him. He was staring out in front of him, his fingers interlaced and resting under his chin. He too was deep in thought; Ron would have loved to know what about exactly but he didn’t have the courage to ask. He was glad that he’d finally come around to believing in magic, but he still wasn’t being quite as friendly as Chris, or even Abbey now.

   Abbey seized the last of Chris’ cards triumphantly. “Again?” she asked. Chris grabbed the cards and began to shuffle them, jerking as sparks flew from them every now and again.

   “Best of five,” he said determinedly.

   Ron shifted on his mound of spare purple robes. There was no doubt he was in serious trouble – as situations go this one was pretty dire. But, even if You-Know-Who was theoretically after him, he now had a whole school of teaching staff on his side, working to protect him, working on getting him home. Now it was in someone else’s hands, and he didn’t have to worry any more.

   “Snap!” cried Abbey again, grinning widely at Chris’ displeasure.

   That wasn’t true actually, Ron realised. Obviously he still had a lot to worry about. Because You-Know-Who _was_ after him, and only a proper idiot wouldn’t be worried about that. And then there was his other family, the ones that lived here – what was going to happen to them? His brothers and sister were totally unaware they were even wizards apart from Bill, what would it do to them having the Bureau of Illusions show up on their door? Had he ruined their lives?

   And what if he never got back? What if, with all the will in the world, the teachers just couldn’t do it? Hermione had followed Dumbledore and Flitwick’s advice precisely and look where that had got them all? His heart sank a little further at the thought of Hermione, and Harry. Were they okay? Were they home or somewhere else? He sighed and wondered what they would have done in his shoes. He always felt better following their lead – what if he’d done it all wrong?

   “Snap!” shouted Chris triumphantly as the cards went bang. Abbey was about to open her mouth to protest, but A.J. interrupted her.

   “So how exactly are they exploding and not catching fire?” he asked.

   “Magic,” said Abbey, not even looking up from the game.

   “But _how,_ exactly?” A.J. pressed.

   Abbey sighed and rolled her shoulders. “I dunno – cards probably got some flame-proof charm on ‘em, an’ the pairs a matchin’ combustion one. Simple.”

   A.J. didn’t look like he thought it was simple. “So that’s what you do, you charm things?”

   Ron frowned and felt the need to join in. Chris was still only feeling the need to beat Abbey at snap, or so it seemed, and didn’t look up. “Well, things yeah, the spells we use on them are called charms. But with other things, like Defence Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, they’re just spell spells.”

   That caught Chris’ attention. “Defence Against...is that like combat training?”

   Ron shifted about uncomfortably, but Abbey seemed eager. “Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s mostly theory, we learn about vampires and Dementors, what they are, how to fight ‘em off if we ever saw one. An’ then we learn how to duel and stuff, but like ah said, mostly theory.” She grinned at the boys who looked impressed, but Ron swallowed hard.

   “Mostly just theory,” he muttered, feeling hot as he stared at his fingers. What they’d been through at the Ministry, with Malfoy’s mum, all that stuff in the Chamber of Secrets and with the Philosopher’s stone – that had been neither theory or fun like Abbey was portraying. She looked at him curiously.

   “You okay pumpkin?” she asked, laying her cards down. Ron suddenly felt like a bright light was shining down on him. He was so used to hanging around Harry and Hermione who knew everything, had always been there with him. Even Ginny understood. But now these three were looking at him curiously.

   “Fine,” he mumbled. “Just – you don’t need to make fighting for your life sound cool, alright?”

   Abbey’s eyes widened at him. They were light green, lighter than Harry’s. “Sure,” she said softly as Chris dropped his gaze and gathered up all their cards again.

   Ron felt like he should say something to break the tension. “Um,” he began unconvincingly. “It’s not just spells and charms though,” he said. “We learn how to make potions, and study magical plants, and astrology and history of magic.”

   A.J. took this in. “So you just say magic words? Why can’t anybody do it?”

   Ron and Abbey shook their heads together. “You need a wand,” said Ron.

“Magic comes from within,” explained Abbey, tapping her chest. “The wand channels what’s already there. Can’t be learnt.”

   A.J. sighed. “What about math?” he asked, changing tact. “English? Don’t you learn life skills too?”

   Abbey cried out “Snap!” again, winning the third game in a row, but once more Chris took the cards from her and began to shuffle them. She shrugged. “I went to a Muggle elementary,” she said. “So I already knew stuff like that, and you can take extra Arts classes if you want. But I guess they cover that stuff in Muggle studies, I didn’t take that, seemed pointless.”

   A.J.’s eyebrows creased and he opened his mouth to counter-argue, but at that moment the wall began to creak.

   All four of them snapped their attention to where the invisible door was slowly coming into view on the blank wall. It would only appear if you knew it was there and said the right incantation, like Abbey had, and it had vanished once they had all got themselves inside.

   “I thought no one could get in here,” said A.J. as everybody froze. The outline of the door was slowly forming, groaning as it did.

   “No, hardly anyone can,” Abbey whispered, wide eyed. “Maybe it’s my captain?” She pulled out her wand and stood up. Ron felt it would be a good idea to do the same. There was a tense few moment’s pause.

   Professor Rodriguez, the young Hispanic teacher, poked his head, unsure, around the newly formed door. Upon seeing who was inside his face broke into a bright, relieved smile, as did Abbey’s at realising who the intruder was.

   “Abigail,” he cried in his Spanish lilt and came into the room, shutting the door and letting it vanish slowly. “I was looking all over for you, I was worried.”

   “Oh that’s so sweet of you,” said Abbey, resting her hand on her chest. “Madam Crabapple told me to look after these here boys so I wanted to hide them somewhere real good – I didn’t think many people knew about this place?”

   “Oh,” said Rodriguez and blinked. “Well, yes, of course I am a teacher Abbey, I know just about everything.”

   “Oh yeah, sure,” replied Abbey, slightly abashed. There was a slight pause and A.J. frowned.

   “So what do you want?” he asked, his voice a little weary. The teacher turned his head to take him in.

   “You’re one of the Muggles aren’t you?” he asked.

   “Yes,” replied A.J. moving protectively over to Ron. “And we’re supposed to be in hiding, which is a little difficult to maintain if people come looking for us.”

   Rodriguez laughed. “You have a point there,” he said smiling. “I do apologise, but I needed to find Mr Weasley here. After what the headmistress told us I realised I knew how to help and set out to find you immediately.”

   “You can?” perked up Ron, a thrill of hope rising up within him. “How – how can you help me?”

   Rodriguez smiled again, white teeth flashing against perfect olive skin and warm, dark eyes. “By getting you home of course.”

   “Oh that’s awesome!” gushed Abbey. “What do we need to do?”

   “Well, if Ronald will come with me,” he explained. “I will be able to perform the correct incantation. It is all set in place by now I imagine.” Ron felt dizzy – it was that easy? He was going home?

   “I can’t thank you enough,” he said breathlessly, taking a step forward. “Can we go now?”

   The professor frowned and closed his eyes briefly. “I think it is best,” he said in his rolling Spanish accent. “If the others remain here, where they are safe. The Headmistress was very firm about this.”

   Abbey looked crestfallen. “But,” she said. “I was supposed to be lookin’ after em.”

   Rodriguez winked at her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The Muggles will still require your protection. You have done very well today Abigail.”

   “Standing right here,” muttered A.J., but Ron didn’t get why he was still being grouchy.

   “It’s okay,” he said to the boy who had only just come around to believing in magic. “Once I’m gone, your Ron’ll come back, and then you guys and my family will be safe.”

   “The bad wizard will just forget about you?” asked Chris dubiously, shuffling the exploding snap cards in his hands. Occasionally they sparked against his fingers, but he seemed used to it now.

   Ron shrugged. “I’ll be in another reality,” he said, then turned to Rodriguez. “Right, he won’t care anymore?”

   The teacher nodded. “His only interested, is in the doppelganger – you. Once you have left us your family can go back into protection, the best we have to offer.”

   Ron beamed, he felt ten pounds lighter. “See,” he said to his new friends. “It’s fine.” He felt suddenly awkward, and offered out his hand to Chris, who was the closest. “It was great meeting you, thanks so much for all your help.”

   “Dude,” said Chris eagerly, pumping his hand. “It’s been awesome, take care, you hear?”

Ron nodded in agreement. A.J. took his hand next.

   “So, you just happened to know the spell?” Abbey asked Rodriguez, but then turned to Ron before he could answer. “Or is it a charm?”

   Ron scoffed, and thought back to Hermione and Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall. “It’s bloody complicated,” he said, shaking his head. “You need all these tricky ingredients for the potion, as well as a couple of charmed things and a spell. And it’s much harder to send someone back than it is to be pulled back. Dunno why,” he added with a shrug.

   A.J. narrowed his eyes. “So it’s really hard?”

   “And it’s a potion?” Abbey followed on.

   Rodriguez smiled again. “Like I said,” he said smoothly. “It’s in progress.”

   “You said _you_ knew it though, that you could help,” pushed Abbey, but the professor’s face darkened.

   “Abigail, I do not have time to explain myself, all your lives are in danger. The quicker I help Ronald, the better.”

   “But,” insisted A.J., stepping between the teacher and Ron. “You couldn’t have had time to set it up and then come find us?”

   Rodriguez narrowed his eyes. “I will kindly ask you to step out of my way, Muggle.”

   Chris inhaled loudly, but Abbey suddenly pulled A.J. away, all smiles. “Oh professor, we are just so sorry. It’s just been a helluva day and we are all dog-tired. Of course you should take Ron an’ do whatcha gotta do.” She threw her arms around Ron’s neck and squeezed him tight. He was too startled to do anything but manage a pat on her back.

   “Get ready,” she whispered, so quietly he barely even heard her.

   Ron felt her let go of him, and he hardly had time to draw breath as she spun around at an astonishing rate and cracked Professor Rodriguez square on the nose, blood spurting out in a shower of red droplets.

   _“Aparecium!”_ she shrieked at the invisible door as Rodriguez spun around, legs tripping over each other and his hands flying to his bloodied face. He lunged at Chris closest to him, but on instinct Chris reacted and sprayed the deck of cards at his face. He mustn’t have shuffled them all that well, because several pairs were still together and exploded in his face. A.J. leapt and pushed him back whilst he was off balance, and the door fully emerged.

   Abbey grabbed the handle and yelled “GO!” just as Professor Rodriguez slammed into the basket of Quadpot balls.

   It was suddenly like a batch of fireworks had been let off in the room, and as the door swung outwards to the girls’ changing room, the air was crackling with blinding light and deafening whizzing and banging. “What the-!” cried Ron, but he was already being grabbed by A.J. on the arm.

   They fell into the changing room, but unfortunately it was no longer empty. The girls from Abbey’s cheerleading squad had obviously just come back in from training, and were now screaming and yelling at the sudden appearance of a door, young men and a rally of explosions.

   Abbey jumped out of the smoke holding Chris’ hand as another loud blast rocked the secret room. She slammed the door shut and fired several locking and protection spells on it for good measure.

   “Abbey?” squealed the little Chinese girl that had taken her bag from her. “What’s happening?” Several other girls were shouting at her too, but Abbey finished her spells first before turning around.

   “Everybody run!” she screamed at her teammates, and without asking questions the Fireflies charged for the door, shouting, screaming and, in the case of one tall, well built girl, sounding out a violent battle cry.

   Ron turned to see the secret door had just about vanished already, but Abbey was already shoving him outside as the throng dispersed between all the houses’ changing rooms, arranged in smallish buildings in a cluster by the stadium. A number of boys were running out of the changing room next door, wearing t-shirts and trousers in the same purple design as the girls’ uniform.

   “Hey!” cried one of them. “Where’s the fire, what’s wrong!”

   Abbey didn’t pay the boys any more mind than the rest of her team. She seized Ron’s hand and began sprinting towards the main school building.

   “What the Hell was that?” yelled Chris as they fell into pace behind.

   “That?” said Abbey, as their feet pounded on the grass. _“That_ was four older brothers who never played fair.” She flexed and shook out her hand , rubbing the blood off on her uniform.

“No,” cried Ron shaking his head in confusion, his thighs already burning from running. “What just happened, where’d the explosions come from?”

   “Quadpot balls,” said Abbey. “They’re pre-charged, that’s how the game’s played – you have to get it in the goal before the explosion or you’re out. The snap cards must a set ‘em off.”

   “Good job,” shouted A.J.

   “Wait, no stop – STOP!” insisted Ron, yanking his hand from Abbey’s. “That guy was trying to _help me!”_

   Abbey looked back down to the changing rooms and the stadium. Ron did too, but he could only see the cheerleaders, some running, some hiding, some looking around in apprehension with their wands out.

   “We gotta keep moving,” Abbey snapped. Ron opened his mouth to protest, but she began marching. “I’ll explain on the way, now _move!”_

   Ron did as he was told, his head reeling. What had just happened?

   “He wasn’t gonna help you,” Abbey muttered bitterly.

   Ron shook his head. “Yes he was, he said-”

   “It wasn’t _him,”_ snarled Abbey.

   “Who?” asked Chris.

   Abbey rubbed her arms. “Professor Rodriguez. It weren’t him. Or it were and he was under Imperius Curse.”

   “What does that mean?” asked A.J. as they approached the school. Dusk was well settled in now, making the sky purpley-blue and the shadows long. Ron hoped they blended right into the darkness.

   “Mind control,” he said heavily. “What makes you think that?”

   They reached the building, and Abbey reached her hand out to the stone brickwork, as if for reassurance. “He would never say _‘Muggle’_ in that tone a voice, he practically sneered it.” She said sadly. “And he teaches Herbology – why would he know a complex potion off the top a his head.”

   “Plus you said the spell was a lot of work,” agreed A.J. “I mean, I don’t know the first thing about magic, but it just didn’t seem like enough time.”

   “Probably why he wanted to split us up,” said Abbey.

   A cold sensation ran through Ron as they followed the building round to the front. “Why would he do that?”

   Abbey shrugged. “My best guess? He was probably trying to get you to You-Know-Who, or to someone else already here that could take you to him.”

   Ron felt himself space out, and reached for the brick wall of the school house like Abbey had to steady himself. He was grateful that night was falling, taking some of the heat out of the day, as he felt suddenly very queasy.

   Abbey took him by the shoulders and looked up at his face. “Hey,” she whispered. “C’mon, I promised I’d keep y’all safe an’ that’s exactly what I’m a do, kay?”

   Ron nodded and let her take his hand as they entered the school’s main entrance hall, where Bobby had accosted them an hour or so ago.

   “So...was he under some sort of mind control?” said A.J. in a strained voice.

   “It’s illegal,” said Abigail quickly, leading the boys down one of the corridors. “An Unforgivable curse we call it. There’s no way Rodriguez is a traitor,” she said forcefully, but Ron wasn’t so sure.

   “In here,” she hissed, after checking no one else was around. She nipped behind a large plinth with an eagle on, just like the one on the school’s crest, and placed her hand on the wall. It slid open and they all dived in to the darkened passage way. “We have to go down,” she explained, grabbing her wand and lighting it with a quick _‘Lumos’_ spell. There was indeed a ladder leading straight down just a little way ahead of them, and one by one they descended.

   “Where are we?” enquired Ron as he reached the bottom. The nausea was subsiding ever so slightly as the adrenalin ran its course. Abbey waited until everyone was down then began walking.

   They were clearly underground, and the tunnel looked to be supported by a series of wooden beams, like a mine shaft thought Ron. His dad had once explained to him about how Muggles dug underground for things in ‘mines’. He wasn’t sure what things, but his brother Fred had once told him that’s where chocolate came from. Ron wasn’t so sure though.

   “It’s part of the underground railroad,” Abbey said as they walked. There were torches attached to the walls with brackets, and they lit as they walked past. Still, Ron lit up his wand as it made him feel better. “We used to help slaves from the Confederacy escape up north, back in the day.” Ron wasn’t sure what she was referring to, but the mention of the word slaves sent a shiver down his spine. “We’re not really supposed to come down here,” Abbey continued. “At the start of the semester Crabapple said especially not to come in this entrance, but I know it all real well so I’m sure we won’t have no trouble. Rodriguez won’t find us.”

   Ron sighed. He was sure he’d heard something about ‘no trouble’ already today.

 

***

 

   He could feel the dewy grass on his palms and the back of his neck. His head hurt, but he’d had worse. There was a pleasant cooking smell drifting through the air.

   Slowly he opened his eyes to stare at a beautiful periwinkle blue sky, and he blinked.

   This was definitely not the old History of Magic classroom.

   Harry Potter sat suddenly up and looked around, the purple pendant bouncing on his chest as he swung his head around. He was sitting on a lush patch of grass, closely surrounded by the back ends of several tents. They weren’t normal camping tents though, they were grand square things, brightly coloured with banners and flags billowing off them, all decorated with coats of arms. The sun was shining cheerfully but the breeze was ever so slightly chilly, it felt like a spring morning. Harry frowned; had he travelled across time as well as dimensions? He didn’t think he could handle that just now, especially as his stomach was rumbling and someone was definitely cooking bacon somewhere. Where the Hell was he?

   Suddenly a man in his mid twenties poked his head around one of the tents. He was very tall, at least a foot above Harry’s five and a half feet, with light brown hair and bright blue eyes. His broad shoulders were clothed in a red and gold tunic adorned with a lion, and he had an impressive looking sword sheathed around his hips.

   “Allo – knew I heard something!” he cried in a distinctly East London accent. The voice was totally wrong for his antique look, but somehow it fitted him just fine. “You alrigh’ there?”

   Harry looked up at the stranger. He knew he was pretty far from alright, and hadn’t been, probably since last November, but he didn’t have the heart to be rude. “Yeah,” he said wearily. “I’m okay.”

   The man gave a crooked grin that lit up his eyes and he darted over to Harry’s side, offering him a hand. Everything about him seemed long, slim but strong, including the fingers he was now waggling in front of Harry’s face.

   “Come on,” he said grinning still. “You’re not the first new one we’ve had, they’re landing all over the place in fact. I hear the popping noises.” He put a finger in his mouth from his free hand and flicked it out again, illustrating the kind of popping noise he meant. Harry let himself be pulled up.

   “Where are we?” he asked. “What ‘place’ have I landed in?” Another reality? Harry was absolutely certain he couldn’t handle a third parallel universe.

   The man frowned and looked over the tops of the tents. “Hmm,” he pondered. “Not sure what it’s called. Technically I haven’t been long here myself. Well,” he amended, “I think I probably have, but I don’t remember much.”

   Harry didn’t totally follow this. He brushed the grass off his jeans and wondered how many tents there were – now he was standing he could hear the murmur of quite a lot of voices not so far away. He tried to slow his breathing down. Had he done something wrong? He’d activated Snape’s letter just like he had done last November, why hadn’t it got him home? Had Snape made a mistake? He looked down at the purple stone hovering in the silver nest hanging from his neck.

   He grabbed the pendent and closed his eyes, trying to swallow the rage. Alex. He’d bet anything that this was his fault again, this stupid amulet he’d given him had caused nothing but trouble.

   “What do you remember?” he said in the calmest voice he could manage, opening his eyes. The tall man didn’t seem perturbed by his radiating hostility.

   “Um,” he said, screwing up his face in concentration. “Dying.”

   Harry’s entire body felt like he’d just jumped into ice water. “Dying?” he croaked.

   “Yep,” said the man, pleased with himself. “It was all a bit of a shock.”

   Harry felt like he might pass out. “Does that mean...?” he whispered. “Am I dead?”

   The man looked like he’d just asked a bit of an embarrassing question. “Well,” he said after a beat. “What do _you_ remember?”

   Harry only took a moment to think. If this guy reckoned they were in some sort of afterlife, it was probably okay to talk to him about his rather unique travelling habits of late.   “I was in the wrong universe, the wrong reality. I was trying to get home, it worked the last time I tried.”

   The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh,” he said nodding. “Oh you’re Harry, aren’t you?”

   Harry’s mouth dropped open, but at that moment a little girl in a green dress with cream polka dots came running round the corner and gasped at them with surprise and delight. “Allo?” said the man.

   The little girl hid her grin behind two hands and hissed out a laugh between her teeth. _“Ici!”_ she called out to someone the way she had just come. _“Ils sont ici!”_

   “Who?” cried a voice Harry didn’t have time to register. “Who’s here?”

   Hermione Granger came pelting round the corner. Her hair was sleek and straight, her fitted jeans flared slightly around a very nice pair of boots, she wore a necklace with an old key as the pendent, and Harry could have even sworn she was wearing make-up. She too gasped at the sight of Harry and the tall stranger.

   “Harry!” she cried, and flung her arms around him. “Where did you go? The Librarian just said you’d ‘gone’ and absolutely refused to elaborate.” She sounded very indignant as she let go of him and looked him up and down. “And then the library all swirled and disappeared and now we’re in this huge field with what appears to be a medieval army camped out, and there have been so many new Drifters arriving, all from our universes still, and-”

   “Hold on Hermione!” Harry interrupted and she took a deep breath. The little French girl was looking up at them in interest. “What the Hell are you talking about? I just activated a letter that was supposed to send me home, to my own universe. Are you alright, it said you’d been sent somewhere too, why do you look different?”

   Hermione’s eyes widened, and he thought about it. She did look completely different.

   “You’re not my Hermione are you?” he said, and looked at the man. “Is she dead too?”

   “No!” they cried out together, and the little French girl giggled.

   “No, Harry,” said Hermione. “This is Limbo remember, are you alright?”

   “Limbo!” said the other man and clicked his fingers. “That’s what it’s called.”

   “What do you mean ‘another reality?’” asked Hermione. Harry stared at them all in horror.

   “Limbo?” he said weakly.

   _“Oui!”_ chirped the girl in the green dress. _“C’est un lieu magique.”_

   Hermione looked at him, scrutinizingly. “You’re not the Harry who disappeared a couple of hours ago are you?

   “No,” he said. “I’ve never been here before, I was just in the Hogwarts library, activating the letter Snape sent me to get home.”

   Hermione stared at him, then the older man, then back at him. “You’re the Harry that took the Harry-that-was-here’s place.” Harry rubbed his eyes, stressed. He didn’t like talking about multiples of himself, but he guessed he should have been used to it.

   “So let me get this straight, there was another Harry here, in...” he swallowed. “Limbo.” That was a nothing place right? The place in between proper places.

   “Yes,” said Hermione. “But he disappeared. And more and more Drifters began arriving, then suddenly there was this big whirlwind and the library we were standing in transformed into this.” She waved her hands around. “When Ric got here,” she nodded at the tall man. Harry wouldn’t have picked Ric to be his name in a million years. “He began organising the troops, but the Librarian wouldn’t say what happened to you – the other Harry I mean.”

   Harry closed his eyes. “So, hang on a minute,” he sighed. “You’re not the Hermione from my world, but you’re not dead?”

   The little French girl began running around, pretending to be an aeroplane. “No,” said Hermione, just like she was explaining Transfiguration homework. “Another Hermione has travelled to my world and taken my place, so now I’m here.”

   Harry couldn’t help it, how could he have been so stupid? It was all falling into place, as he inhaled sharply, covered his hand with his mouth, and sat abruptly back on the grass.

“Harry, are you alright?” said the man Ric, reaching down to grab his shoulder. Hermione crouched down and looked concerned into his eyes.

   “Harry, it’s alright, you’ve probably been replaced too, that’s why you’re here.”

   He shook his head. “No,” he moaned. “Don’t you see, _I_ did the replacing, and I was trying to get back to my own world. I was the one in that other Harry’s body, just like I was in a different Harry’s body last November.” He looked around at the colourful tents. “This is where that Harry must have gone,” he wondered aloud. “Draco never mentioned.”

   Hermione was staring at him in mute astonishment. “Last November you travelled to an alternate reality?” she squeaked. Harry nodded.

   “Oh!” she cried and flung her arms around him, tumbling them both to the ground. The French girl clapped in delight and jumped on top of them both. “Oh Harry!” cried Hermione. “It’s _me!”_ she sat up, tears running down her face as Ric removed the little girl from Harry and threw her on to his shoulders. “You came to my house, told me I was a witch, we went to Germany with Draco.”

   Now it was Harry’s turn to stare. “What?” he said.

   Hermione’s eyes searched him. “That was you wasn’t it?”

   He nodded, a smile suddenly splitting across his face. “Is it really you?” he whispered, and she laughed, wiping her tears away.

   “Yes, I’m sure. The Librarian said the Draco here was from your world,” she said, hope alight on her face. “Does that mean my Draco was with you?”

   ‘My Draco’ thought Harry. “Yes,” he said instead. “Yes, him and Sarah, we were trying to send them home, but then I woke up in another body.”

   “Wow,” said Ric. Harry looked up at him towering over them. “I have no idea what you guys are talking about. Shall we go back to camp where someone can interpret for me?”

   Hermione laughed and stood up, offering Harry her hand so he could do the same. “Yes, the Librarian can maybe fill in some blanks.”

   Harry stood and the quartet made their way between two tents, out into a large sort of tent corridor. “What is this place?” Harry breathed, trying to take it all in. There were people everywhere, some running, some sitting, some standing, staring into space with a mildly terrified look on their faces. They were from every walk of life Harry could think of, from every time period that he knew and then some. British navy men with blue coats adorned with fringe and brass buttons mingled with African tribes people with spears and their near naked bodies covered in painted patterns. A crying Asian child was scooped up by a Native American woman, who turned and joined a small blond haired centaur-boy in serving soup to a gaggle of Samurai warriors.

   “Limbo,” said Ric, bobbing the little girl along on his shoulders. “The place people go who aren’t really dead, but not alive either – like me. It doesn’t normally have form, so this is a bit of a shock to us all.”

   “Form?” said Harry, not quite following.

   “Yeah,” said Hermione. “It’s normally more of a construct of the mind, which I mean it still is, it’s just now there’s half a dozen real people here and that’s created a platform from which the Drifters can re-imagine themselves, take physical form again and build up a landscape too.

   “Thanks,” said Harry dryly. “That’s all perfectly clear now.” He looked at Hermione, remembering their conversation in her bedroom, the way she’d been so brave under the tunnels in Germany. He recognised the key she was wearing now, it was from one of the logic tasks she’d completed to get them through. He’d never thought he’d see her again, but then he’d never thought he’d seen Draco or Sarah either.

   “What’s a Drifter?” he asked.

   “A half-life,” Hermione replied. “Like Ric and Marie. People who didn’t really die but aren’t alive any more either. Apparently that’s the politically correct name for them.”

   Ric nodded and bounced a giggling Marie on his shoulders.

   Harry looked around as they walked down past all the tents. He felt like he did the first time he went to Diagon Ally, like he needed more eyes. Men were sharpening swords and stringing up bows, a wizard was putting suits of armour together then giving them instructions to head places by themselves. A young black girl crouched by a tent, her fervent eyes flicking intently from one thing to the next. So none of this was real, it had all come from these people’s imaginations?

   “Why does Limbo look like a battleground?” asked Harry hoarsely.

   “Ah,” said Ric, looking at the ground. “I think Merlin best explain that to you.”

   Hermione stopped walking, and Harry did likewise. “Merlin?” she spluttered, and Ric laughed. “Yeah, he’s got you calling him Librarian for some unknown reason, numpty.”

   Hermione looked indignant, then stomped off with her long glossy hair swishing behind her, leaving Harry and Ric to catch up after her. “Merlin?” Harry asked Ric as he tickled the little girl’s legs.

   “Yeah,” he said with a nod, but Harry wasn’t satisfied.

   _“The_ Merlin, like, as in King Arthur and the knights of the round table?”

   Ric shrugged. “It was a very popular name in the twelfth century wasn’t it, before it got common.” He pulled a face. “But I’m guessing this guy’s the real deal, otherwise Alex owes me a fiver.”

   Harry’s face turned to stone, and he side-stepped in front of Ric so he was walking backwards and facing him. “What did you just say?” he breathed.

   “What, Merlin?” said Ric as the girl played with his brown hair. “He’s a funny old sod.”

   “No,” said Harry, waving his hands. “No, Alex – who’s Alex?”

   “Oh,” said Ric. Harry noticed Hermione darting down between two tents from the corner of his eye, and turned to walk forwards again so he could follow her. “He’s a Watcher, that’s someone who-”

   “I know what they do,” sighed Harry, following Hermione’s route through the tents. “Skinny guy yeah? Chatty, prone to turning problems into absolute disasters.”

   “So you’ve met him then?” asked Ric good humouredly, confirming Harry’s suspicions.

   “How do you know the Watcher of my universe?” he groaned, and Ric winked.

   “He’s my Watcher too,” he said mischievously. “We had a few run-ins whilst I was alive, then, afterwards, I was a sort of his assistant for a while.” He chuckled and looked out into the middle distance fondly.

   “So you’re from my universe?” Harry asked, leaving that particular topic of conversation until such a time as he could lamp Alex in the face.

   “And that other blond boy’s,” said Ric. He gestured to all the tents they were walking past. “Everyone here is tethered to either your universe, that girl Hermione’s, the boy from the New World’s or the other you’s, though now he’s gone I doubt many more will show up.”

   Harry thought about how similar the universes were that he’d seen, and tried to phrase his question. “So...does that mean there’s more than one of you here?”

   “Yeah!” said Ric, apparently pleased Harry had asked the question. “All your universes are pretty much identical until fifteen years ago, or so Merlin said. So chances are there’s four of everyone who died-but-didn’t-die before then. Except for him,” he laughed, as if this was obvious. “There’s only one Merlin, thank God.” He shook his head. Harry didn’t quite follow, but shook his head too, sympathetically. “There are other ‘me’s though, running round sorting out people from their universes.”

   Harry looked him up and down. “So are you in charge?” he asked sceptically. He may have looked like a knight without his armour, but this guy Ric wasn’t acting like one. Sure enough he grinned and shrugged his broad shoulders, casing the little French girl to squeal in delight.

   “I bark orders every now and again,” said Ric nonchalantly.

   Hermione was about twenty feet ahead of them now, and turned sharply to her left, so Harry and Ric followed once they reached the same turn off. They emerged in a circular clearing, with a dozen or so tents facing inwards around a large campfire where people were cooking sausages, bacon and eggs.

   The place was buzzing, thronging with all manner of people going hurriedly about their business, but it was easy to follow Hermione from her voice, which was currently a few decibels off of a yell. “Merlin!?” Harry heard her all but shriek. “Don’t you think that’s something you should have told us!”

   Harry pushed through the crowd to find her standing in front of a little man, probably in his fifties. He was sat on a wooden stool, reading a book, smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of red wine. He wore braces over his shirt, bifocals on the end of his nose, and right now a look of exasperation.

   “Because I thought Librarian fitted the occasion,” he said scornfully. “Believe it or not I’ve had more names than I can remember, and that happens to be one of my favourites.”

   “Hi,” said Ric cheerfully as if nothing was a miss, and Merlin-The-Librarian sighed.

   “Godric,” he said, and Harry felt himself do a double take. Godric? “I’m glad you’re back, I have another recruit for you.”

   A young Indian girl stepped forward from behind Merlin, dressed in a sari and sandals, a red dot on her forehead and gold on the lids of her beautiful big eyes. “They told me I should cook,” she said loudly in a accent that Harry placed as Hull or Leeds. “But I want to fight.”

   Ric (or Godric was it?) smiled patiently at the young woman and placed the little French girl on the ground where she ran off. “Whoever ‘they’ are,” he said kindly. “They were right. A battlefield is no place for a woman. I have plenty of strong men.”

   In a movement so sudden Harry found himself jumping back, the girl whipped a wand from her sari, and with a spell flung Ric’s sword out of his holster then pressed the tip her wand to his throat.

   “But obviously,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Not enough strong women. Gibbons!”

   A nervous looking man in his early twenties appeared from nowhere. He wore a royal blue tailcoat with gold piping and fringe, white trousers in black boots, and a triangular black hat with white trim. “Yessir!” he barked, saluting at Ric, then eyeing up the girl with the wand warily.

   “New recruit,” said Ric calmly. “See she gets something sharp and pointy to wave about, and a place near the front line to do it.”

   The Indian girl smiled triumphantly, and stepped away from Ric to join Gibbons, who led her off into the crowd.

   Harry watched her go, but then his eyes were drawn to the glinting sword by his and Ric’s feet. Rather audaciously, he picked it up and examined it. “I know this sword,” he said incredulously, then looked at Ric, who was watching him with interest. “I’ve used it before.”

   Godric Gryffindor smiled. “Alex mentioned that to me when I put it on earlier,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “Though he reckoned he knew someone else who’d quite like a go with it.”

   “Hang on,” said Hermione. “Wait – what’s going on?”

   Harry handed the sword back to Ric and tried not to let his mouth hang open too obviously as he re-sheathed it. “Hermione,” he said to his friend’s doppelganger. “Meet Godric Gryffindor, one of the four founders of Hogwarts.”

   Hermione crossed her arms and frowned, looking Ric up and down. “You’re one of the greatest wizards and military leaders that ever lived?”

   Ric looked a little offended at her tone, but just shrugged and put his hands on his hips. “Last I checked.”

   “But,” spluttered Hermione, looking between Ric and Merlin. “But you’re far too young, he died at ninety two! And from _Hackney_ by the sounds of it! How can this be possible?”

   Trust Hermione to argue about the semantics, thought Harry. He was still star struck from meeting Gryffindor and Merlin within the same five minutes.

   Merlin sighed heavily, and plonked his wine, his pipe and his book on the grass, before standing up and addressing Hermione. “He looks how he wants to look. From what I remember you were about four and twenty in this current guise, correct?”

   Ric looked himself up and down. “Guess so,” he agreed. “Thereabouts, started going grey in my thirties, so it’s before then. And I got rid of that scar too.” He pulled the sleeve of his red tunic up and showed Merlin his unblemished forearm.

   “And he sounds the way your brains are interpreting him,” Merlin continued. “His Olde English is more akin to fourteenth century French, but he’s the modern day equivalent of an Eastender, so that’s what you hear.”

   Hermione thought about this, and Harry did likewise. “But,” she said after a few moments. “Marie, she’s still speaking French?”

   “Ah,” said Merlin, nodding his head and reaching for his wine. “She’s too young to fully appreciate she needs to make herself understood. She’s just chatting away for her own sake.”

   Harry looked at Merlin as he puffed on his pipe again, Godric as he sheathed his sword, and the alternate Hermione as she glared at them both. Suddenly he felt utterly exhausted, totally spent. Seeing Draco and Sarah again, dredging up all those feelings he’d done his best to repress last November. The school being attacked, fighting for their lives at the Ministry. Then Draco, Draco’s mother...

   Harry closed his eyes and sat down, right where he was standing. Watching Narcissa Malfoy murdered right in front of their eyes. Thinking Draco was dead, sitting vigil with him for days. Then trying to say a real goodbye, only to end up in another wrong reality, and now...now...

   “Harry?” asked the Hermione with the make-up and the key necklace. “Are you okay?”

   Why hadn’t the spell worked? How had he ended up in yet another parallel universe, and Hermione in Draco’s world, and Ron...

   “Is Ron here?” he asked, shielding his eyes to look up at Hermione and Ric. Merlin had dropped back onto his wooden stool and kicked his feet up.

   Hermione’s eyes scanned the crowd. “Yes, somewhere,” she said. “But I can’t see him right now.”

   Harry scrambled up. “Is he okay?” he asked. “Where did he go?”

   “I’ll go find him,” said Hermione kindly, and slipped into the hoard.

   Harry watched her go, then turned on Merlin as he reached back for his book. “Why am I here?” he snapped, irritation rising in him.

   The Librarian sighed. “I might not be the best one to explain that,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach is eyes.

   “But Ric said you would,” Harry accused. “He said you’d know.”

   Merlin looked scornful. “Of course I _know,”_ he sniped. “I know everything you silly child. I just happen to _know_ that there’s someone on their way who should explain it to you himself.” He rubbed his eyes and muttered under his breath. “He at least owes you that.”

   There were voices suddenly from the big, blue tent Merlin was sitting in front of, and the flaps twitched. Harry’s eyes darted to Ric, but he just shrugged as the entrance was flung open by a small, red and angry dragon.

   “I do believe,” said the dragon in a nasally, high pitched drawl. “You are about as useful as a chocolate tea pot!” He waved around an old looking, slightly burnt teddy bear as he turned and addressed the entrance of the tent. “Where’s my TREASURE!” he snarled with a little burst of fire.

   “Once again Puff you never fail to delight on these little adventures of ours.”

   The tent entrance billowed open, and Harry caught a glimpse of what looked like a hallway of an old house. But he didn’t dwell too long on that, as the owner of the voice stepped out and let the tent flaps fall behind him. “Ah,” he said, pleased. “Harry, I see you’ve already joined the party.”

   Harry stared at Alex the Watcher, and felt himself begin to shake. He didn’t even notice as two more figures emerged from the tent behind him. “This is _all your fault!”_ Harry bellowed, and launched himself at Alex.

   He barely made it two steps before the arms of Godric Gryffindor were thrown around his waist, hauling him backwards, and someone jumped in front of Alex protectively.

   It was Seamus Finnigan.

   “Seamus?” Harry said, disbelievingly, and stopped struggling immediately. It was only then did he realise who the other person by Alex’s side was.

   “Draco?” he said slowly. But which Draco? Which Seamus? He looked between the two young men. “What’s going on?”

   “Will you behave if I let you go?” asked Ric in his ear. Harry nodded mutely, and Godric’s strong arms released him.

   Merlin arched an eyebrow at him. “Mr Potter, you will reign in your temper, is that understood?” Harry wanted to tell the old man that he hadn’t even seen his temper fly properly yet, but instead he bit his tongue and nodded.

   Draco looked at Alex. “Is that him?” he asked, then eyed up Harry. Alex peeked out from behind Seamus.

   “Even if I couldn’t see his aura,” he said in his refined English accent. “There’s only one Harry Potter that could have that reaction to my particularly lovely face.”

   Draco let out a huge sigh, and marched over to Harry. They’d drawn a little crowd after Harry’s outburst, and the gaggle of mismatched people watched on intrigued as Draco seized Harry’s hand and pulled him into a hug. “It’s me mate,” he whispered, and Harry drew back to stare at him. “The spell went wrong, it sent you three to different universes instead of sending Sarah and I home.”

   Harry felt a little, just a tiny amount, of the weight lift from his shoulders. “Draco,” he said, and yanked him back into the hug. “What the bloody Hell are you doing here.” He let go at him, and squared up against Alex again. “How did he get to Limbo – and Seamus?”

   Alex threw his hands up as Merlin got to his feet. “That’s quite enough!” he barked, and for a small man he managed a mighty glare at the onlookers. “Off you go,” he said. “None of your concern.”

   Grumbling, the various men, women and children slunk away to carry on with whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. But as they moved away, they left three people standing still, watching Harry and the others with varying expressions on their faces.

   Ron Weasley was staring at the little dragon with a look of horror. He wore a backwards baseball cap, a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a pair of knee-length shorts. Next to him was Harry’s godfather Sirius Black, but he didn’t look like the Sirius Harry was used to. He was younger, healthier, and had lost that haunted look in his eyes. Instead he seemed pretty amused by what was happening in front of him. And finally there was the Hermione that had travelled to Germany with Harry. She folded her arms as the last of the crowd dispersed, her eyes roaming over the newcomers.

   “Malfoy,” she said evenly. “I see you decided to rejoin us. Where did you get to?”

   Seamus (who Harry was still very puzzled by his being there) gave a small laugh, then winked at Draco. Draco turned back to Hermione, and Harry realised something. They were from the same world, this was ‘Hermione’s Draco’. He turned to her too, and rested his hand on his shoulder.

   “It’s not Malfoy, Hermione,” he said softly. Draco seemed rooted to the spot, watching Hermione like a hawk. She frowned at him, then looked again at Draco.

   “Hermione?” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “It’s me.”

   Slowly, Hermione’s face dissolved from a scowl to apprehension. Her eyes were wide, unflinching from Draco’s. “From my world?” she whispered. Harry could feel the tension between them, like an elastic band, waiting to snap.

   And then it did. It was like someone released invisible springs from their backs, and the two of them vaulted from where they stood, flying towards each other and catching themselves in their arms.

   “I’m sorry,” cried Draco as he took hold of her face and kissed her fervently on the lips. “I’m so sorry.”

   Hermione had tears running down her face and was laughing between kisses. “Shut up,” she said, and threw her arms around his neck. Draco kissed her hair, her cheeks, her forehead and her lips as she laughed and cried and gripped his hair so hard it must have hurt. “Are you okay?” Draco nodded and wrapped his arms around her, burying his head into her long, sleek hair.

   Harry couldn’t help it. He turned away in shock. Godric was smiling behind his hand, and the look on Harry’s face made him crack a laugh.

   “That’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” said Harry. “And believe me, that’s saying something.”

   It made sense he guessed, the clues had all been there, but it was still very strange to think of Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy being together, even if it was this particular Draco and Hermione.

   The new Ron looked at Sirius, who’s mouth was hanging open, then raised his eyebrows. Stepping forward, he held a hand out to Harry. “Hi,” he said in an American accent which startled Harry almost as much as the kissing. “I’m Ron, I’m a wizard apparently.” He shook Ric’s hand as well and Harry frowned at him.

   “Don’t you know me?” he asked, and Ron shrugged.

“Should I?”

   Harry felt some of the weight come back that seeing Draco had lifted. “We’re best friends,” he said meekly.

   Ron folded his toned and tanned arms, nodding. “I’ll have to tell Chris and A.J.,” he laughed to himself. “What’s your name?”

   “Harry Potter,” he replied, feeling odd.

   “Nice to meet you Harry,” said Ron, smiling.

   “Okay, okay!” said Merlin irritably. Harry turned around to see him waving his hands at Hermione and Draco. “Enough of all that.”

   The two of them grinned and moved apart, but held onto each other’s hands as if it was suddenly their source of life.

   Harry’s anger at Alex was edging around the shock he’d felt at Draco and Hermione’s kiss. The little red dragon – Puff, Alex had called him – was skulking around glaring at everybody accusingly. A little white puppy had emerged from the blue tent as well, and was trying to wrestle the slightly charred teddy bear from him whenever he wasn’t looking. Alex was still standing with Seamus Finnigan, the former looking uneasy and the later practically delighted.

   “Okay,” said Harry. “We’re going to have to start from the top.” He was pleased he managed to attract the attention of everyone in their motley little group. He took a breath and tried to formulate his first question. “Why is Sirius here? Which Sirius is he, and why does he look younger?”

   “That,” said Merlin. “Is the Sirius Black from the world you just travelled from, the Harry who was here was the one you replaced.”

   Harry turned at stared at his Godfather, who waved back sadly. He must know all this already as he seemed very at home with what was going on, but Harry’s head was reeling. “Everyone kept telling me he was dead,” he said in a broken voice, thinking of that other Harry.

   “Not quite!” said Sirius happily, giving two thumbs up.

   “And,” continued Merlin. “He looks-”

   “How he wants to look,” Harry finished, remembering what he’d said about Godric. He decided to move on. There were so many things he wanted to ask he’d be there all day if he wasn’t careful. “Okay, so why did Alex walk from a tent with Draco and Seamus – which Seamus are you, from my world?”

   Seamus smiled sadly, and looked to Alex as if asking permission. Alex gave the smallest of nods. “No Harry,” said Seamus in his soft Irish accent. “I’m from Draco’s world.”

   Harry heard Hermione gasp, and saw her turn to look at Draco in shock and doubt. “But,” croaked Harry. “You’re dead.”

   “I know,” said Seamus cheerfully, and punched Alex on the arm. “But I got a new job! I’m the Watcher of that reality now, I look after everyone.” He honestly looked so happy Harry wasn’t too sure how to take it.

   “So...you don’t mind you’re dead?”

   Seamus shrugged. “It’s just the way it is,” he said.

   Harry marvelled at him. He looked really good – the way he wanted to look he supposed. All that rage the other Harry was carrying around with him...

   “You’ll have to let your Harry know,” said Harry with a ghost of a smile to Hermione and Draco. “Maybe he’ll let up on you a bit.”

   Seamus rolled his eyes and scoffed. “And Parvati,” he added. “They’re both being totally moronic, Terry’s got the right idea, making fun of him.” He grinned, and Harry tried to think who he meant – Terry Boot?

   “Hold it!” squawked the little dragon Puff, interrupting their conversation. His eyes were alive on Harry, his little clawed hands gripped together in glee. Harry fidgeted uncomfortably, suddenly feeling like dinner. “He has it,” Puff breathed. “I can tell, the human boy _has it!”_

   He leapt at Harry, claws flying, knocking him to the ground with a pretty impressive roar. “Get off!” yelled Harry, but his claws were around his throat.

   “It’s mine!” the dragon wailed, but Godric’s hand was already wrapped around his scaly body, yanking him up off of Harry and holding him aloft in the air. He looked at Godric with genuine fear, all bravado vanished in an instant.

   “That,” said Ric pleasantly enough. “Is my heir. And you will not be molesting him. Understood?”

   Harry, unbelievably, had forgotten until that moment that he was in fact Godric Gryffindor’s heir. He tried looking at his face but couldn’t seen any family resemblance.

   “But,” whined Puff. “He’s got my amulet!”

   Harry propped himself up and frowned at the dragon, then fished the purple pendent out from under his t-shirt. “This is yours?” he asked, and Puff began twisting and wriggling like a fish caught on a line.

   _“Mine!”_ he howled pitifully. “Please give it back, please, please, please!”

   “Here,” said Harry disdainfully, thrusting it towards the dragon’s little face. “Take it, it’s caused nothing but trouble.”

   Puff snatched the necklace in unrefined delight, hugging it to his chest and weeping tears from his cobalt blue eyes. Godric sighed and dropped the dragon unceremoniously on to the grass, where he scooped up his teddy bear and danced around as much as his little legs would manage. “We got it back teddy,” he all but sang. “We got it back.”

   Alex was looking down at Harry in apprehension. “Ah,” he said, casting a sideways glance at Seamus. “So you worked out that was what messed you up?”

   Harry glowered and got back to his feet. “You told me it would take that bit of Voldemort out of me!” he yelled, but Draco had his hands up.

   “Wait,” he said, stepping in between Harry and Alex. “It’s actually my fault, I confused the amulet, it would have worked fine if I hadn’t...” he trailed off, his eyes downcast.

   Harry looked at his friend. “If you hadn’t what?” he asked kindly.

   He inhaled deeply. “If I hadn’t got a Horcrux, a bit of Voldemort in me too. Just like you did.”

   Harry stared at him, then he felt the penny drop. Draco’s mother had given her life for his, and the curse had rebounded. He looked down at the infinity symbol scar on his wrist. He was actually a bit surprised to see it there; Draco was back in his own body, with his own clothes and most notably the fine silvery scarred lines on his forearms. But there was his scar from Voldemort, where his Dark Mark should have been, had it permeated more than just his skin? “You have a bit of him too?” he asked, his voice weak.

   “No,” said Alex. “No, no, see – that bit did work fine.” Harry looked at him sceptically, and Draco leant in to him.

   “Go easy on him,” he whispered. “He’s one of the good guys.”

   Harry snorted, but tried to acquiesce. “What bit worked?”

   “The Horcruxes, the bits of the two Voldemort’s souls, the amulet got them both out.”

   Harry actually managed a smile. “Well, that’s good isn’t it?” Alex grimaced, and Harry’s hope faded before it had even really formed. “Of course not,” he cried, throwing his arms out and letting them fall to his sides. “Why not?”

   “The Horcruxes,” said Merlin slowly. “Did not return to their original universes, as planned.”

   Harry stared at him and tried to keep everything straight in his mind – he felt like he was on overload. “So where did they go?”

   “One,” said the ancient magician. “Travelled with the Hermione of your world, and the other with the Ron. Hitchhiking if you will.”

   Harry felt sick, and cast a sideways glance at Draco, who looked equally guilty. Harry wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but he knew if someone told himself that he wouldn’t believe it, so stayed quiet. “They have bits of Voldemort inside them now?” he asked in a small, defeated voice.

   “No,” piped up Alex. “Not inside them, the amulet should have channelled them into an inanimate object.”

   “Like what?” asked Hermione. Ron’s face was scrunched up in concentration, probably trying to follow what was happening to his body. ‘I’m a wizard apparently’ he’d said – did that mean he hadn’t known that before he’d got here?

   Alex rubbed the back of his well-waxed hair. “Logically, it would be something close to their – your – bodies, something you were wearing. It’s almost sentient, so something you had an attachment to would be ideal. Otherwise it could have been anything you were near at the time, a book, a fork, which would be a nightmare to work out.”

   Hermione stared at the Watcher, then at Harry and Draco. “Something sentimental?” she asked. “Something I wear all the time?”

   Alex’s eyes widened. “Yes!” he spluttered, and Merlin nodded. “That would be perfect.”

   Hermione took a hold of the key around her neck, looked purposefully at Harry again, then held it up for them all to see. “I never take this off,” she said softly.

   Alex let out a “Yippee!” and punched the air. When he came back down he hugged a delighted looking Seamus. “What are the chances?”

   Ron was staring at Hermione, his mouth slightly open. “Pretty good, apparently,” he said sardonically, and pulled off his baseball cap, flipping it over and holding it out, like he was expecting Alex to put something inside it. “That’s my lucky cap,” he explained. “No one’s even seen my hair for the past three years.”

   Alex looked like he might faint from delirium.

   “So that’s where the Hor-thingies will be?” asked Harry. “The bits of Voldemort?”

   Alex danced about and Seamus nodded. “Yes,” said Merlin sombrely. “If you are as attached to those items as you say, it would be highly unlikely for the Horcruxes to go anywhere else.”

   “A bit of luck,” said Godric.

   “For once,” added Draco, rolling his eyes.

   “So,” said Harry once the euphoria had ebbed lifted slightly. “How do we get them back?”

   “Get them back?” repeated Alex.

   “Yeah,” said Harry, “don’t we need to get them back in the right reality?”

   “Why, so they have to deal with them all over again?”

   Harry let out an exasperated cry. “I don’t know, do I?” he snapped. “That’s what the amulet was supposed to do to the extra Horcrux I had inside me!”

   “That’s because,” said Seamus, trying to calm the situation. “It _was_ inside you, we couldn’t very well destroy you to get to it, could we?”

   Harry suddenly felt small and vulnerable. “No,” he mumbled. “No, I guess...thanks.”

   “But,” said Alex. “The cap and the necklace are inanimate, so if they’re damaged beyond magical repair, that’ll kill the Horcrux dead.”

   That didn’t sound too easy to Harry. “How exactly?” he asked. “What would do it?”

   Alex turned to Merlin and raised his eyebrows. Merlin sighed. “Deadly poison,” he said, as if it was obvious. “Like that of the Basilisk. How do you think you destroyed Riddle’s diary?”

   Harry blinked at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

   “In the Chamber of Secrets,” supplied Alex, but Harry waved him off irritably. “Yes I do remember,” he griped. “But are you telling me that was a Horcrux?”

“Yes,” said Merlin. Harry felt himself go a little dizzy. How could that have been a bit of Voldemort, he’d had no idea? But then it had talked to him, corrupted Ginny, made her do things. He shuddered.

   “So,” said Harry, closing his eyes. “My Hermione and Ron need Basilisk venom?”

   “Or a number of other poisons would do,” said Merlin. “Anything that cannot be undone magically. Certain metals possess lethal qualities, so a weapon made from Elvin Titanium or normal steel charmed correctly-” he threw a glance at Seamus, and Harry felt his insides freeze. The cursed sword that killed him. “Would be equally effective. Unnatural elemental magic, such as Fiendfyre, or radiation from an Ifrit nest, would consume the item and the Horcrux both. There are a couple of nasty mutation spells, but they’re very complicated, or you could put the item in a vacuum – blast it into space and attempt to separate the two from each other-”

   “Okay,” said Hermione, throwing up her hands. “Okay that’s all brilliant, but what good does it do? Our doppelgangers don’t know about any of this.”

   “Ah,” said Seamus happily. “I had a breakthrough with that!”

   Everyone looked at him expectantly. “Yes?” prompted Harry.

   “Well,” said Seamus. “It wasn’t easy, gave me a right headache, looked through loads of books-”

   “Seamus,” said Alex warningly, the same time Merlin barked “Young man!”

   “Alright,” argued Seamus, throwing his hands up. “So, I almost managed to talk to them both, when they nodded off or nearly passed out, but then they both woke up. As soon as they’re properly asleep, I – or any Watcher – can get to them and explain the whole thing.” He nodded smugly. “Easy.”

   “They just have to fall asleep?” asked Harry.

   “Like I visited you Harry,” said Alex, with a hint of apprehension. “Do you remember, when you were dozed off on the forest floor, and you talked with Ron?”

   Harry felt his mouth fall open. “Yes!” he said, shock resonating through him. How could he have forgotten that? “Ron said he had the same conversation too, he said he saw you as well!”

   Alex shrugged apologetically. “I thought it might have been a way to send you home, but I only managed to connect you with a part of that home, who happened to conk out at the right time.”

Harry couldn’t believe it. Why hadn’t he remembered that as soon as he’d met Alex at Stonehenge?

   “So,” said Hermione, determinedly bringing them back on topic. “You can talk to the other Ron and Hermione-”

   “What?” said Alex loudly, his head jerking around. Harry thought at first he was talking to Hermione, but he was searching the crowd, like he’d heard his name called. His face fell, then he turned and held his arm out at an angle, oblivious to the rest of them staring at him confused. Apart from Seamus that was, who looked tense and alert.

   A grey homing pigeon emerged in a flurry of feathers from the blue tent that Alex and Draco had come from. Harry jumped in surprise, as did Hermione and the American Ron, but no one else seemed put out. The pigeon landed on Alex’s arm and he quickly removed a tiny strip of paper from its leg. He and Seamus took barely a few seconds to read the information, before spinning on their heels and into the tent.

   “Back in a sec!” called Alex as the two of them sped into the entrance hall of what Harry swore looked like a house. The pigeon flew along after them, with the small, white puppy bounding along the grass and hopping over the threshold as well.

   “What’s going on?” Harry asked as the tent flaps swung shut behind the dog’s tail.

   Merlin shrugged as if this was perfectly normal behaviour from a Watcher. “He’s probably got stuff to do,” said Ric by way of an explanation. Harry felt his insides go cold.

“Back in my world?” he clarified, and Ric nodded. Harry felt his eyes gliding over the small group that had formed a sort of circle, away from the hustle and bustle of the camp site. He suddenly realised what was wrong with the picture before him, and turned to Draco.

   “Where’s Sarah?” he breathed. “Why isn’t she with you?” He couldn’t believe he’d only just noticed that she was missing from their numbers.

   Hermione looked expectantly at Draco, but the likes of Ron and Ric just looked blank. “Who’s Sarah?” asked the young looking Sirius.

   Draco shifted uncomfortably. “Alex said she’d be fine,” he said after a moment. “She was with Sir Woofsalot-”

   “Who?” Harry interrupted.

   “The puppy,” explained Draco. “And he’s turned up fine. She would have stayed in the school and your universe when Alex kept me in Limbo. Severus was going to send her straight back home.”

   “She was in Limbo?” said Harry, and he couldn’t help it, he looked around the crowd as if she’d still be there.

   “The whole school was – aftermath of the amulet sending you guys to the wrong realities.”   Draco shrugged. “But I thought it was fixed, so maybe it’s just a new problem he’s-”

   “Watch out!” yelled Alex’s voice as he burst from the tent once more, Seamus right behind him, wand out.

   Harry ducked as something soared out above their heads, it looked like a blackish grey cloud.

   Draco let out a strangled cry and whipped out his wand to blast the cloud with a defensive spell that made it jerk up higher into the sky. Godric was throwing spells only a moment or two later, and soon several other people in the clearing were attacking the mist, which was definitely moving around of its own accord, like it was alive.

   “What is it!” cried Hermione over the din of people yelling incantations and the magic crackling through the air. She was ducking like Harry and Ron, the three looking up open-mouthed in confusion. The base of the cloud suddenly opened a pair of black, jewel like eyes, which Harry could have sworn glared down at him and his friends, before the entity gave up and whizzed off into the sky.

   There was a collective sigh of relief from the people of the camp site, and they started milling about again, carrying on with their business.

   “What on Earth was that?” demanded Harry, standing once again.

   “Fixers,” said Draco. “They’re attracted to energy; and real people, like us lot, have loads of it.”

   “More than anyone else in Limbo by far,” said Alex.

   “Our energy?” Harry repeated.

   Draco look grim. “They suck it out of us. They eat it.” Harry didn’t like the sound of that.

   “Some of them got through,” panted Seamus. “To Harry’s world, Sarah sent them back.”

   Harry really did feel alarmed now. “Is she okay?” he snapped. “Alex is my sister okay?”

   “Sister?” piped up Sirius, stunned. “What do you mean, sister?”

   Alex waved his hand dismissively, taking deep, steady breaths, his hands resting on his knees. “She’s fine. She did a very brave, very stupid thing.” He glared accusingly at Harry as if to suggest this was a genetic trait with all Potters. “But she’s back home and those parasites are back here where they belong.”

   “So she’s safe?” pressed Harry. Seamus opened his mouth as if to make a query, but Alex just nodded his head.

   “Yes, I promise you she’s back home.”

   Seamus shrugged. “Yeah,” he admitted, “she’s back home.” By his tone Harry wasn’t convinced that entirely constituted as ‘safe’, but he wasn’t sure he could do anything more for her. He wasn’t sure what to feel – relief his sister was home? Worry for what she’d just been through, it sounded dramatic from Alex and Seamus’ reaction. Or just sad, sad she was finally gone and he was really never seeing her again.

   “Hang on,” said Sirius. “What do you mean sister-?” but Merlin interrupted.

   “We can explain that later,” said the old magician. “Right now we have more pressing matters at hand.”

   “Yes,”Hermione agreed emphatically, picking up exactly where she had been five minutes ago, as if there had been no attack from a strange cloud monster at all. “So – if our alter-egos do somehow manage to get the message and do _somehow_ manage to destroy their respective Horcruxes, then what, will everyone go back to the right universes?”

   Ric and Merlin shared a look. “No,” said Merlin. “Destroying the Horcruxes is necessary for everyone’s safety, but their damage has long been done.” He glanced sadly at Alex, who closed his eyes. Seamus took his hand and squeezed it.

   “More damage than sending us to different universes?” enquired Harry.

   “Yes,” said Alex heavily. “Yes I am afraid so.” He shoved his hands into his faded black Levi’s and rocked on the balls of his feet. “You see, this has never happened before. I’ve lost a couple of people to alternate universes, but I always got them back. But an evil bit of someone’s soul? We had no idea what would happen.”

   Hermione left Draco’s side and stepped closer. “What?” she breathed. “What happened.”

   “The two Voldemorts,” said Alex. “From the two universes.” He looked from Harry to Draco. “After what you guys did, had no corporeal bodies. And when fragments of their souls travelled dimensions, across the planes of Limbo, they were able to...hitch a ride.”

   Hermione took a sharp intake of breath.

“So they’re in the other realities too?” asked Harry, but Alex shook his head.

   “Why would you swap one bodiless reality for another, when you could stay in an immaterial realm, and become its master?”

   Harry slowly began to understand. “So they’re both here, in Limbo?” he croaked.

   Alex, Seamus and Merlin all nodded grimly. “And,” said Godric. “They mean war.”

   Harry looked around at the encampment, all the soldiers, all the people making weapons and fortifying defences. “You’re preparing to fight,” he said softly.

   “But it won’t be enough,” said Draco in a tight voice, and Harry saw he was staring directly at Alex, who gave him a small, sad smile.

   “What do you mean?” asked Harry, as Draco looked down at his figure of eight scar on his wrist.

   “They can only be destroyed by the ones that took a part of their soul in the first place,” said Alex gently. “That’s the only way they’ll be weak enough.”

   Harry tried to swallow.

   “So you mean-”

   “Us,” said Draco. “You and me. We have to kill our Voldemorts once and for all, otherwise they will unravel Limbo and every single universe it holds together.”

 

 


	7. The Show Must Go On (Part One)

Chapter Five –

   The Show Must Go On

 

 

Empty spaces

What are we living for?

Abandoned places

I guess we know the score

On and on

Does anybody know what we are looking for?

 

Another hero

Another mindless crime

Behind the curtain

In the pantomime

Hold the line

Does anybody want to take it anymore?

 

The show must go on

The show must go on

Inside my heart is breaking

My make-up may be flaking

But my smile, still, stays on

 

Queen

 

 

   Consciousness came upon Sarah Potter like a tidal wave. Her arms flung out, seizing the soft surface she was lying on and she inhaled like she had never breathed before. There was hardly any light, and she found herself scrambling backwards in the darkness as terror overcame her. She tumbled to her right, off of her perch and onto carpeted floor, smacking her arm onto something hard as she fell.

   She froze, not moving a muscle, except for her eyes that darted fervently across her new, dim surroundings. Her skin was cold and clammy, beads of sweat were prickling on her forehead. She was shaking all over, uncontrollably, and her stomach was cramping painfully. She gasped out involuntarily, clutching her sides.

   How long had the Fixers been on her? Where were they, where was _she?_ She trembled, not daring to move in case there was something waiting for her in the darkness, but shapes were trying to form for her, vague lines in the faint light coming from her right. Was she sick, like that boy Marcus?

   Was she dying?

   She didn’t think so. She had certainly felt better in her life, but she was wide awake, no hint of passing out like Marcus or Rob the soldier. Her breathing was short and shallow, which wasn’t helping her light-headedness, but she was still urgently searching around the dark room, paralysed in fear that something was lurking in the shadows, eager to pounce.

   There was, however, something incredibly familiar about this set up, and she found her heart rate slowing as recognition crept gradually over her, easing her cramps and lengthening her breaths. The room wasn’t actually all that dark, once her eyes began adjusting to the gloom. Greyish light was illuminating the edges of the heavy, lined curtains to her right, giving the room little slivers of light for her to try and ascertain its geography.

   Forcing herself to take a deep breath and hold on to it for several seconds, Sarah began to crawl on shaking hands and wobbly knees towards the light source, glancing out of the corners of her eyes as she moved, checking desperately to make sure she was still alone. Her hands touched the cool, painted wall, and she began to pat her way up, slowly, towards the curtains.

   Her hands gripped the corners, and in one decisive movement, she flung them apart with a cry, panting as she blinked in the weak sunlight, and realised where she was.

   She was home. At Godric’s Hollow. In her bedroom.

   “Oh!” she breathed out, unable to contain her relief as she stumbled away from the window looking down onto the rainy garden, and she landed back on her bed that she had just fallen from. She curled up into a ball, trying to lessen her cramps as tears escaped from her blinking eyes. She was home, she’d done it.

   She began squeezing herself all over, trying to see how much damage the Fixers had done. Had Alex been listening? Had he pulled them off her in time and confined them to Limbo? She really hoped so.

   After a time she sat herself up, her eyes gazing over her room bathed in pale grey light, the sunshine struggling to penetrate the cloud and the rain and the net curtains enough to give it much definition. But there was enough to see the room was identical to the one she remembered, down to the last sticker on her mirror, teddy on her bed, clothes on her floor. It was exactly how she had left it in the whirlwind to get to Hogwarts on the first day of school. She had no doubt this was her reality.

   But why was she here? Why wasn’t she in the History of Magic classroom? She shook her head and flopped on the bed, grabbing a particularly large teddy called Rupert that Sirius had won for her at a fair. She didn’t care where she’d landed, she just cared she was home. She squeezed the bear so hard his stitches were in danger of popping, and breathed in his old familiar sent.

   Her whole body was aching, like she’d been running for hours and her muscles were starting to seize up now they were cold. Her stomach was getting better though as long as she concentrated on relaxing, which was a little easier said than done. She stared at the four watercolour paintings hanging from the wall in a row, each with fairies from the different seasons fluttering about in distress, looking down at Sarah in concern. “I’m alright,” she croaked to them as they swooped and darted about in their frames, foxes and frogs and doves following in their wake. “I’ll be okay.”

   Her eyes were drawn to the floor, and she realised there was something important resting there; Professor Snape’s letter.   She let her eyes linger on it a while, then reached out gently, not wanting to aggravate her cramping innards, and lifted it carefully in her fingers. There was no addressee on the outside, just the silvery wax seal holding the parchment closed in a tight roll. Making her mind up, Sarah ran her finger along the join, breaking the wax with a crack, and unfurled the letter.

   “Dear Lily-”

   Sarah snapped the parchment shut, sitting upright on her bed so fast it made her head spin. Snape had written a letter to her mum? She knew she should just roll it up again, even re-seal the wax and hand it over, but she couldn’t help herself, she was too tired to resist.

   “Dear Lily,” she began reading.

   “I know you do not know me, and the Lily of my world has long since departed. But I cannot tell you what it means to be able to talk to you one last time, even if you are not quite the Lily of my childhood.

   This letter is a poor substitute for seeing you in person, but it is the only chance I am ever likely to get, and though I know you will have no way to reply, it gladdens me to know that I will have had one last opportunity to speak to my old friend.

   I have missed you with all my heart ever since that night in October. It was the darkest, most terrible moment of my life, one which I thought I might never recover from. I have spent countless hours since wondering how it could possibly have turned out differently. And now, after meeting your wonderful daughter, I know.”

   Sarah stopped reading, her eyes filling up with tears. How could this be Snape? Her dad and Harry hated him, he was miserable and vindictive. But then she thought of this Snape, the one the letter was from, carefully showing her how to help with his potion. Had he really loved her mum? Was that why he had been nice to her?

   “She is the black haired embodiment of you. Full of fire and kindness, I feel very privileged to have met her. And to know that there is a Lily Evans still alive somewhere in the universe brings me a kind of peace I did not know I was searching for, even if she is Lily Potter now. I hope more than anything that you, and the rest of your family, are happy and well. I once thought there was nothing worse than seeing you fall in love with someone else; I now know how selfish that feeling was.

   You will always be dear to me Lily, and all I ask in return is you do not forget the times we had together as children. I will hold them dear the rest of my days.

   Farewell and take care,

   Severus.”

   Sarah slowly rolled the letter back into its original shape, and used her wand to melt the wax together again. There was a lump in her throat, thinking about her parents’ murder in the other Harry’s world, how he had grown up with their aunt and uncle who must have been just beastly to him. And now this – Severus, Professor Snape. It was a known joke in their house that Snape had fancied her mum, but what Sarah had read there suggested real love. Had Severus held a candle for her all those years, hoped they’d be friends again? Or more?

   Sarah shuddered. Her mum was most certainly not friends with him in their reality, but at least she was still alive. Sarah hugged the parchment to her chest, and thanked whoever was out there (her own Watcher perhaps?) that her parents had escaped Lord Voldemort, that Sirius had never trusted Wormtail like he had in Harry’s world, and they had gone on to live their lives. That she had been able to live at all.

   She felt an overwhelming need to go find her family that she’d been away from for so long. Her brother might not be in the house, but her parents who she’d not seen in over a month surely would be, or she’d at least be able to track them down. They must have been worried sick about her since she’d travelled over to the other reality. She stood up from the bed with the intention of searching the whole house, but stopped as she caught a sight of herself in her dressing table mirror.

   Her magical reflection jumped back in shock.

   There was dried blood smeared on the left side of her face from smashing it onto the floor too many times that day. Her hair was half pulled from its ponytail, her eyeliner had run. There were dark circles under her lashes and scratches on her neck and arms, her lips were cracked and her clothes were ripped.

   She looked like she’d been crying.

   No wonder the Muggle woman Rose had wanted to take care of her; she looked like a war victim, a refugee. Shakily, she sat down on the wooden chair in front of her dresser, placing Snape’s letter in front of her, and gripped her hands onto the edge of the table. She was a war victim, she decided. She had been through a terrible ordeal, and she’d made it out the other side in one piece. She felt the wolf rising inside her again.

   Slowly at first, then methodically, she began removing all her piercings, every hoop and stud, even the one from her belly button. She rubbed where the bar had been pressing, then stuck out her tongue to unscrew the bolt.

   Kicking off her boots, she walked to her bedroom door, and without stopping moved to the bathroom. The rest of the house was dark, and she slipped quietly inside, turned on the light, and locked the door. Within a minute she was in the shower, scrubbing every part of her body in scalding hot water, steam rising in the room like the Fixers she’d just been battling. Sarah eyed the mist as it clung to the walls, then pushed open the window into the cool afternoon air.

   It could only have been three, maybe four o’clock, but the sky was dark and thunder was rumbling away in the distance, just like it had been in Harry’s world when she’d crossed over. The steam drifted harmlessly out into the rain, and the breeze touched icily on Sarah’s body.

   She twisted the taps and the water slowed to a drip. As this was her own bathroom she knew there would be a towel ready and waiting for her when she reached out, and sure enough there was. She furiously rubbed her skin and hair, wincing as she dried her injuries mercilessly. In the cabinet on the wall was some basic balm her mum had stored about the house for cuts and bruises, and as she smoothed it over the tender parts she exhaled gratefully, feeling the pain melt away.

Next, she generously coated herself in moisturiser that smelt of raspberries, and brushed her teeth with vigour. Wrapping herself with her towel, she picked up her wand and levitated her clothes to follow her into the still quiet landing of the attic floor, and back into her bedroom, switching the lights on.

   Her mind flickered over the fact that her family didn’t seem to be home, before dropping the towel and clothes on the floor. She pulled on fresh underwear, purple tights with holes and ladders in, socks, a black vest top, another purple vest top, black shorts that reached her knees with lots of pockets, and purple and black striped arm warmers that came up over her elbows. There was a baggie, black zipper hoodie hanging from the handle of her wardrobe, and she shrugged it on, stamping her boots back on to finish.

   One by one, she put fresh earrings in, a different stud for her tongue, belly, nose and eyebrow, then began attacking her hair. The roots pulled at her scalp as she yanked the brush through, but the pain felt good and sharp, it kept her focused. Eventually she declared it straight and tangle-free, then started to gently dry it with the tip of her wand, just like her mum had shown her. She looped a new bobble through it, and put up a fresh ponytail, tugging the uneven strands out how she liked. On a whim, she added a black plastic hair band with skulls wearing pink bows to make a little quiff at the front. The skulls had fangs, and the cute absurdity of the accessory made her smile.

   She sat down at her dresser once again and picked up her spare make-up kit. It wasn’t as good as the one she’d taken to Hogwarts, but it had the basics. Foundation, concealer, pencil on her eyebrows and liquid liner on her lids. Shimmering silver power in the corner of her eyes, then purple, then black, finished off with mascara and a purpley gloss on her lips.

   She was done.

   She stared at herself, and her reflection turned from side to side in approval. She sat, breathing in and out, and her reflection became still, mirroring her properly for once. She was home, she was clean, she was safe.

   Before she even knew what she was doing, Sarah’s hand was around one of her old perfume bottles, and it was hurtling towards the wall on the other side of her bedroom. She cried out, a guttural sound, as it smashed into a thousand pieces, spraying what was left of the liquid inside over the carpet. The fairies stopped fluttering, and looked down in shock.

   Her breathing was deep and heavy, but after a while it slowed, and her mind cleared.

   What was she doing, hiding up here? Why wasn’t she running downstairs to find her family, to tell them she was okay? She walked over to the mess and said _“Tergeo.”_ Instead of siphoning the perfume from the carpet, it just sort of made it bubble a bit. Sarah sighed, resigned herself to just fixing the bottle, then placed it back on her dresser before walking over to the door and out of her room.

   She flipped on the light and began walking down the stairs to the middle floor, which held both Harry’s and her parents’ rooms, as well as the main bathroom and the new bedroom they’d created for Draco. “Hello?” she called out, turning on another light. Now she was moving further down, she could hear some sort of commotion going on. She stopped dead in her tracks.

   After what she’d been through the past week, and not to mention the year before, it was like her body had a direct line to her adrenalin, a flood gate it could open at a moment’s notice and overrun her system with chemicals. Her heart was thumping as she edged across the landing, heading for the stairs. “Hello?” she called out again, though her voice sounded thin and weak this time. Her wand was in her hand.

   There was a sort of moaning noise, and something crashed, making Sarah jump.   “No,” she uttered, just loud enough for her to hear. “No, no, come on.” But then there was a shout, someone crying out, and Sarah found her legs moving before she could stop them. All she could think was that her family was in danger.

   It was like each stair she took the moaning and other noises got louder. There was banging and scraping and shuffling and creaking. What the Hell was going on in her house?

   She reached the hallway by the front door, and headed very cautiously into the living room where the noises seemed to be louder. She barely turned the corner when she realised what the problem was. There must have been twenty or thirty people crammed into her front room. They were clamouring at the kitchen door, which had one of its panels split open, and her brother was standing, frozen, on the other side. These people were bloody and groaning, and every few seconds a jolt of blue electrical current would travel up their bodies, jumping from one to the next.

   Sarah felt the horror rising through her, gripping her by the throat. She stumbled backwards, knocking into a table, making the people’s heads turn. And that was when she saw the eyes, those milky white eyes that lolled about in their heads. The closest of which was her father’s.

   “Daddy?” she stammered, as James Potter turned clumsily around, and reached towards her. “D-Daddy?” she tried again.

   He let out a blood-curdling wail.

   Sarah screamed. She’d walked from one nightmare to another, her family were zombies and so were all these other people. They had turned from the kitchen and began shuffling towards her, their moaning louder, their arms reaching out like her dad’s.

   She scrambled to get a footing, her boots crunching on broken glass from the front window as she groped for the banister and hauled herself up the stairs. She almost changed her mind and ran for the front door, but there were bloodied hands pawing at the glass panels, blue electricity visibly jolting between bodies. A hand came through what was left of the glass in the window, making Sarah jump back as the body of a young black woman followed through, tearing her clothes and skin on the shards sticking out from the window frame.

   The people who had been trying to get into the kitchen were all slowly making their way into the entrance hall, lead by Sarah’s dad, and she took another step up the stairs. They were slow, but they were determined. She’d backed herself into a corner; all she could do was run upstairs, barricade herself in, try and call for help. But how long would that last, how long until they bit her?

   A sob escaped her throat as her dad stumbled, moaned, and began crawling up the steps. The black woman dragged herself through the window, and she fell into the throng gradually shuffling through the living room. The people on the other side of the door thumped and scraped their hands down it, wailing and groaning, keen to join their kin in their hunt.

   Sarah was trapped.   So she did the only thing she could think of as she stumbled backwards up the staircase.

   Once she reached the top, she blew it up.

 

***

 

   Harry was still tearing through his impressive stack of books and notes with Luna on the floor outside the library when Ron and Hermione came racing round the corner. They paused briefly at his scattered array of resources, but Harry quickly jumped to his feet.

   “It’s so good to see you guys,” he cried, flinging his arms around them. He still hadn’t quite got over the shock of facing their alter egos, or the strange place he’d met them.

   “We saw you in the Great Hall this morning,” mumbled Hermione from under his arm. “You fainted.”

   “Different Harry,” piped up Luna dreamily from the floor. She was lying belly down flicking through a book. “Easy mistake to make though.”

   Harry let his friends go and they stared at him; he shrugged. “A different Harry from another reality was in my body, and I went to Limbo for a while. It looked like a library,” he added as an afterthought. They continued to stare. So Harry explained it again as best he could with a little more detail, and on his third attempt to get Ron to understand, Neville came hastily round the corner, a large amount of rope wound over his shoulder.

   “So...you weren’t you,” said Ron slowly as Neville dropped his burden to the floor with a thud.

   “No,” confirmed Harry. “And where I went there were different version of you two as well, and Draco Malfoy of all people. The Librarian guy who seemed to be running the place said versions of us four had crossed over from their own realities to all of ours, and pushed us out of our bodies and into the Limbo in between.” Ron blinked.

   “Then...what’s the rope for?” asked Hermione. She’d cottoned on a lot quicker as per usual.

   “We weren’t the only people there,” Harry continued. “It was like a refuge for lost souls, people who weren’t really dead but weren’t alive any more either.” He took a deep breath. “I knew someone there.”

   “Who?” asked Ron cautiously. Harry paused again. Would they believe him? They seemed to this far; or would they just think he’d gone mad with grief and guilt.

   “Sirius,” he managed eventually. “My Sirius, who went through the veil.”

   Hermione gasped and her hands flew over her mouth. “It can’t be,” she whispered. Ron continued to look confused.

   “Sirius was in the imaginary library?” Harry wasn’t sure what he meant by his tone.

   “Yes, as well as a little French girl, and an angry Spanish woman and-”

   “Are you sure you didn’t dream it?” Ron looked a little ashamed of the question as soon as it was out of his mouth. But the others were looking at Harry too now and he felt the irritation rise ever so slightly in him.

   “Are you sure you didn’t dream going to breakfast this morning?” he asked back. He snapped it slightly, but it was through impatience not animosity. He softened a little bit at Ron and Hermione’s reproachful faces. Maybe it was easier for Neville and Luna as they’d witnessed his stormy return in Madam Pince’s library. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I just want to hurry, I’m not sure how long it’ll stay in existence, it doesn’t usually have form.”

   “Even I’ve lost you now mate,” said Neville, his hands on his hips. “While what’s there – Limbo? Is it even possible to go back?” Harry nodded.

   “I think so.”

   A look of realisation dawned on Hermione. “You’re going to try and rescue Sirius,” she breathed, her eyebrows raised.

   “Not try,” Harry replied, taking the rope in his hands as he sat down. “I will rescue him, I won’t let him down, not again.”

   Luna took some of the rope too and wrapped it round her hands. “You need the rope to go down the rabbit hole,” she mused. Harry grinned at how she’d grasped his plan.

   “It looks tricky but I think I’ve found the theory for how to enchant it,” he agreed. “The other Harry – the one you guys met,” he nodded at Ron and Hermione. “Made a load of notes about how to cross over dimensions.” He swept his hand over the mess he’d made on the corridor floor, then ran the rope through his hands. “But this will bring me back through, if the research is right. People have done it before.”

   “They have?” asked Ron.

   “That’s why I needed you Ron,” replied Harry, nodding. “To cross in the first place.”

   “What can I do?” he asked almost defensively. “I don’t understand anything about this.” But Harry was already shaking his head.

   “All I need you to do is contact your dad, explain that it’s urgent.”

   Ron looked at his watch. “I don’t know if I can mate.” He showed him the clock face. “I think he’s still at work – at the Ministry.”

   Harry smiled wider than he’d smiled in a long, long time.

   “Exactly,” he said. “And I need him to get me in, so I can go through the veil.”

 

***

 

   Draco Malfoy was having a little trouble currently reconciling his surroundings. He was slowly becoming used to the patchwork nature of Limbo, having travelled through Alex’s front door a number of times, and after all he’d witnessed whilst the school had been stranded here. But the group that had been stationed by the campfire were now making their way into an enormous big top circus tent, and everything seemed even more chaotic and miss-matched. The outside may have looked like a tent, but inside it was a smoky war bunker, vast and grey and filled with every kind of person Draco could imagine crowded around hundreds of tables covered with Muggle computers old and new, maps and charts, video relays and messenger boys reading loudly from scrolls.

   “Explain again,” said Harry on Draco’s left. “How we’re going to save the entire Multiverse?”

   Draco felt another wave of nausea, and Hermione squeezed the hand she’d been holding on his right.

   “Not really sure,” admitted Draco. “Alex didn’t get that far.”

   “Typical,” scoffed Harry, glowering at Alex, who was up ahead, leading the way with Godric Gryffindor; Woofsy and Puff the dragon at his feet.

   “That’s where we’re going now!” called Alex excitedly over his shoulder. “To strategise!”

   Harry folded his arms. “Do you know you sent me to an abandoned tube station?” he asked pointedly. Alex turned around and raised his eyebrows.

   “What?” he asked, frowning.

   Harry shook his head, as if Alex was proving his point. “When I left your house – you know, the one in space – you sent me to a tomb, a museum. I had to blast my way out.”

   “I sent you to the nearest station?” Alex countered. “Down Street?”

   “Which closed in 1932,” drawled Merlin, who was bringing up the rear with the American Ron and young looking Sirius Black.

   “Ah,” said Alex, and Harry looked a little smug. “Sorry.”

   “None of that even remotely matters,” said Merlin loudly for such a small man. They weaved through tattooed Maori warriors listening patiently to a PowerPoint presentation and came upon a large round table littered with maps, compasses, quills, and some very old books. A young man in a much smarter blue tailcoat than Alex’s with a triangular hat and a nervous disposition was leaning over a particularly faded map, but stood up rigid and saluted upon catching sight of Godric.

   Godric glanced at his companions, then nodded with a smile. “Nice work Gibbons,” he said.

A huge knight was leaning on a six foot sword, pointing at a blueprint being held up by a general in a green military uniform and a cigar hanging from his mouth. They were nodding then the general laughed and slapped the knight on his back. A buxom woman with flaming red hair and an impressive breast plate engraved with duelling dragons approached the table, making the young man Gibbons quiver, and wacked her axe into the wood irrespective of the papers resting on it. A little Chinese man with wicked looking eyes lit up a pipe, and a woman in a sharp, charcoal grey business suit filed her nails and sighed.

   “Come on now,” said Alex, chirpy again after Harry’s put down. “Gather round, make yourselves at home.”

   Draco and Hermione shared a look before standing up at the table by a map with a picture of a storm cloud with a face on it blowing a ship across continents that looked a lot squigglier than the maps Draco was used to. There were images on all the papers of towns, cities, continents and the entire globe. They were covered in a variety of languages and dialects, none of which Draco recognised as English.

   Seamus, Ron, Harry and Sirius filed in around them. Ric went to stand next to Gibbons and Merlin placed himself between he and Alex, who scooped up his puppy Sir Woofsalot and plonked him on the table. There was a straining noise from the floor, and after a moment Draco saw Puff the little red dragon easing off the ground as his small wings tried to lift his fat body upwards. Alex rolled his eyes, grabbed the scruff of his neck, and dumped him next to Woofsy.

   “Now _don’t_ set anything on fire,” he scalded the dragon with a pointed finger. Puff responded with a smoky snort.

   “So,” said Harry slowly, running his hand over the sheets and sheets of information scattered in front of him. “We’re going to plan how Draco and I stop the Voldemorts, yes?”

“And how our armies take on theirs,” added Ric with a nod.

   Draco regarded the odd collection of men and women currently giving Godric Gryffindor their full attention, and felt nervous. Surely one of them would be better to destroy the most evil wizard that ever lived?

   Hermione pressed her hands on her eyes, inhaled, then looked at Godric. “What armies?” she asked. “I mean, I get Harry and Draco need to stop the two Voldemorts, but who are all these people?” She waved her hand about. “Why do you need them?”

   “Because Voldemort doesn’t play fair,” answered Alex darkly, his gaze fixed on the table in front of him. “No matter what universe he comes from.”

   “We need an army,” explained Godric. “Because the two Voldemorts are already raising several of their own. They’re going to take Limbo by force.”

   “And wrench apart the universes like pulling wings off butterflies,” snarled Seamus. “We can’t just sit back and watch.”

   “Hell no,” barked the general, waving his cigar about. Some of the hot ash flew off and landed on a tea-stained map that Gibbons hastily brushed clean. “We find that Charlie and BAM! No more bad guys.”

   “No, I’m sorry,” said Hermione in a tone that Draco was beginning to recognise. “I must have missed a step. _Who_ are all these people, these soldiers that you’re making regiments out of – did they get thought into existence too, like the library and the encampment?”

   “Oh no,” said Alex. “They’re half-lives, Drifters like young Sirius here.” Sirius gave them all a weak salute and the Valkyrie woman eyed him up and down.

   “You just happen to have hundreds and hundreds of people who haven’t really died, who are also soldiers?” Hermione looked incredulous. Draco wasn’t sure out of all things to get bewildered about he would have picked that one, but Hermione was waiting for an answer.

   “You’d be surprised how often it happens,” Ric said with a shrug. “It was always easy to get away with big spells on the battlefield, even in Muggle wars – and with all that bad blood flying around, more often than not hexes would go nasty, they’d twist and distort and before you knew it half the men were gone, disappeared.”

“We call them the Wandering Legions,” murmured Merlin peering at a greying map of what Draco thought might be mountains.

   “Does everything have a funky name around here?” asked Ron, examining a drawing. “It’s like some weak-ass Tolkien bull.” He turned the drawing, which was actually another map, upside down, then showed it all to them. “This one’s wrong, you can’t use it.”

   Gibbons, in what Draco suspected was a rare display of temper, seized the map from Ron’s hands. “It is perfectly fine,” he sniped, rolling it up tightly.

   “It doesn’t have America on it,” argued Ron, looking around for support. “You can’t have a map with missing countries.”  

   Hermione pulled a small, greenish map towards her covered in a mixture of Russian and Chinese symbols. “It doesn’t matter Ron,” she said, her eyes scanning the frail parchment in her hands.

   “Of course it does!” he countered. “They’re not right, hardly any of them-”

   “The ground you’re walking on doesn’t actually exist, nothing here does,” she interrupted. “It’s all made from the subconscious’ of the people who’ve arrived here. If this,” – she held up her green map – “is how some Lieutenant remembers it, that’s how it’ll appear here.”

   “Think of it as a patchwork quilt,” suggested Ric helpfully.

   “So,” Hermione carried on, and Draco felt a rush of warmth towards her for being so calm and direct. Harry looked like he was concentrating very hard on not breaking anything with his bare hands. “You’re just gathering up as many soldiers as you can and telling them to fight for you?”

   “That’s part of it,” agreed Ric.

   “And they just say ‘yes, okay, thanks a lot’-?” questioned Hermione. “They’ve died in battle and woken up in a crazy place, surely they’re going to be confused, hysterical...”

   “Most of them have actually been here a long time,” explained Alex sympathetically. “Not in physical form.” He nodded towards Ric, who smiled back. “So their memories will be a tad fuzzy, but they won’t be as shocked as you think.”

   “I reckon they like being given orders, most of them,” added Seamus. “It’s what they’re used to.”

   “But,” continued Hermione, who looked like she was searching for the right words. “How do you know they’ll fight for you? What if they quite like the sound of this Voldemort guy and switch sides?”

   “You need to have some faith,” said Alex on the other side of the table as he played with a brass telescope. He stood between a large African tribesman and an Arabian mystic. The African was naked aside from a loincloth and several small bones pierced into various parts of his body. All that could be seen beyond the Arabian’s robes were his eyes. They were arguing and gesticulating over a small wooden globe that kept whizzing one way, then the other depending on who was shouting. “They’ve all just woken up, they want to stretch their legs, wave some weapons about. It’ll do them good.”

   “Yes,” argued Hermione. “But for which side?”

   Ric raised his eyebrows. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

   “With every right,” challenged Harry. “This whole situation is a total mess. We,” he pointed to himself and Draco. “Are supposed to wander off and find the two Voldemorts, but I don’t even get how this place fits together. You say it’s a patchwork quilt, and both sides have a random collection of soldiers, but where are we supposed to start?” He scattered some sheets of paper, making Gibbons whimper. “You guys fight, but you’re not alive anymore, you can’t die.”

   “Not quite true,” said Alex coldly.

   “What?” said Draco, surprised. He would have agreed with Harry on that one.

   “We saw loads of people die,” said Puff the dragon in his nasally voice. “In the courtroom, it was horrible.” He held up the charred bear curled up in his tail. “Teddy’s going to need counselling.”

   “Oh shut up,” snapped Seamus. Puff shrugged and began crunching on his claws. “You’re right,” said Seamus to Harry. “No one here is alive anymore. But if we’re destroyed, killed, whatever you want to call it, we can’t reconstruct ourselves, that’s just the way it is.”

   “Not here, in Limbo, anyway,” said Alex, crossing his arms. “If they’re strong enough, been corporeal long enough, they should be able to bring themselves back, but in the true afterlife. Whatever that is,” he mumbled under his breath.

   “Jia?” asked Seamus, which didn’t make sense to Draco. Alex shrugged.

“Oh,” said Hermione. “That’s awful – so, people will just, what? Fade away?”

   Ric nodded. “So the less battle we see, the better. And to answer your earlier question, that’s what all this research is for, to piece together the terrain. We have scouting parties reporting back...”

   He trailed off and looked at Gibbons. “What time was the last report supposed to be in?”

   Gibbons pulled a pocket watch from his trousers. “Er,” he said, squinting. “Three minutes ago.”

   “Go check on it please,” instructed Godric, before turning to the oddities around the table. “Do you have the surveys I asked for?”

   The woman in the smart grey suit stepped forward. She had a laminated name badge on that read Estella Linyar. “The statistics look good,” she said in a German accent. “Our percentage of recruits are a great deal higher.”

   “Yeah,” said Ric, shaking his head. “But theirs are bound to be a great deal nastier.”

   “Sir!” cried Gibbons, and Draco turned to see a small commotion as he pushed through people filing between tables on his right. “Captain Gryffindor!”

   Ric stepped away from their round table to meet him and a young Indian woman in a sari carrying a blood stained scythe. She was covered in grazes and dirt. “Report,” instructed Godric.

   “We were ambushed,” said the woman in a Hull accent. Despite her bedraggled appearance she stood strong and tall. “There weren’t many of them but they were fast, precise.”

   “Casualties?” snapped Godric, and Gibbons seized a pen and parchment to make notes.

   “There were eight of us in my party,” said the girl unflinching. “Four wounded and three...” she looked around for help.

   “Evaporated?” supplied Godric. She nodded. “Good work...”

   “Neema,” said the girl. “My name is Neema. I think there’s more of them out there sir, attacking the other scouts.”

   “What did they look like?” asked Alex, coming up to Godric’s shoulder.

   The Indian girl, Neema, swallowed.   “Not...human. Sir,” she said in an attempt to regain composure. “Not totally.”

   “Neema I need a full description,” pressed Godric, and Neema threw her shoulders back and stared straight ahead.

   “They were men,” she said. “Two of them, their skin was decomposing and their eyes were red. But,” she swallowed again. “Their clothes were ragged, missing in loads of places. And where it was missing, it was...stitched.”

   “Stitched?” repeated Harry, and Draco found Hermione’s hand again.

   “Yes sir,” said Neema, nodding at Harry. “To their skin, with fat thread, like a child’s doll. Like the fabric had been melted onto their skin.”

   Alex sat on the table and slapped his hands over his face. Sir Woofsalot nudged his elbow, making him look up again. “Rhansyk,” he said to Godric. Draco frowned, it wasn’t a term he had heard before, but Godric looked grim.

   “Is that what they look like?” said the captain. “I’d always just felt them, but I never really knew.”

   “Like everything here,” piped up Merlin, who had been quiet for a long time. “They look however they want. But that description coincides with previous reports. I suggest they are dealt with in an extremely timely manner.”

   Godric wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword. “Gibbons,” he said. “Stay here, continue with the coordination efforts.” Gibbons looked visibly relieved. “Neema I need you to lead me to where you were attacked, the rest of you,” he indicated the Viking woman, the American general and all the rest. “Rally your troops, you need to be ready at a moment’s notice.”

   With a nod, the collection of men and woman vanished into the crowds. Godric glanced around, before spotting a Roman centurion. “Cassius,” Godric barked. “I need you and your men, with me.” Cassius nodded, and turned presumably to fetch his men.

   Draco was feeling overwhelmed. “What’s going on?” he asked, and Ric turned to he and Harry.

   “Boys,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I think you should come too.”

   “What?” said Sirius. “Why?”

   “Because,” said Alex heavily. “The Rhansyk will be near the top of the hierarchy for any army the Voldemorts will be assembling. Neema did you notice anything distinctive about their clothes?”

   Neema nodded. “Military uniforms, dark, I’m pretty sure I saw a red band on one of their arms, and a bit of white and black.”

   “Nazis?” guessed Seamus, outraged.

   Alex stood again, agitated. “Yes, Nazis. Anyone like that would be an ideal candidate.” He stopped in front of Harry. “You wanted to know how to find the Voldemorts? Think of these monsters as breadcrumbs, they’ll lead us right to him, but we have to go now.”

   “I’m sorry,” said Hermione, shaking her head. “But you just say _Nazis?_ As in the Third Reich?”

   Draco wasn’t sure what that meant, but he’d heard Muggle-borns calling teachers Nazis before and his father had shouted at him the one time he’d used it, so he assumed it was some sort of Muggle insult.

   “Of course,” said Alex. “The really sick ones I mean, not your average soldier. Their belligerent racism and genuine belief in their superiority, they were bats in the belfry nutters, prime candidates for the Rhansyk.”

   “They – all Rhansyk – saw the world in such a warped way,” explained Godric further. “And had committed such atrocities, their souls were too weighed down to make it to the afterlife. So they drifted here. Obviously they won’t have had the opportunity to flesh themselves out quite so solidly until today, but whenever I’ve come across them in the mists there was always something extremely...unnatural about them.”

   “There’s something extremely unnatural about them now,” said Neema darkly.

   “Enough talking,” barked Godric as Cassius returned. “Let’s go.” To Draco’s surprise Alex and Seamus stood by his side, as if to follow.

   Godric addressed Ron. “Civilians should stay here,” he said, and Ron gave a shaky nod. Hermione though pulled out her wand.

   “If Harry and Draco are going to fight, I’m helping.”

   “No,” said Draco, panicked, thinking of Sarah. He’d made her go home to protect her, even though it had pained him. “Stay here, it’s safer.”

   “I don’t care,” growled Hermione.

   “We don’t have time,” said Godric, already marching off. “We’re leaving now, Neema take the lead.” Neema slung her scythe over her shoulders and pushed her way through, aiming for the tent’s entrance.

   “It’s dangerous,” pleaded Draco, but Hermione squared her shoulders.

   “So I’m not going to just watch you walk off, I’m going to help.

   Sirius motioned to follow, but Alex and Seamus both threw their hands up. “No,” said Seamus. “You erm, you need to stay put.”

   “I’m going with Harry,” challenged Sirius.

   Alex shook his head, walking backwards. “You need to worry about your own Harry, don’t move – Ron, you make sure he doesn’t move!”

   The American Ron looked at Sirius dubiously, but the older man had obviously heard the words about his own Harry and leant on the table again with his arms folded.

   Sir Woofsalot leapt from the table and scampered to Alex’s feet, with Puff following suit.

   “Oh do you have to?” griped Alex at the dragon.

   Puff snorted and waved his teddy bear about. “You still owe me Watcher,” he said petulantly. “All those shiny nuggets, don’t think I forgot.”

   “Wouldn’t dare,” grumbled Alex as he and Seamus fell into step.

   Draco didn’t seem to have a choice but to let Hermione come as they and Harry brought up the flank with Cassius’ men. “Are you sure Hermione?” Harry asked, and Draco was grateful for his support. “You’re not as well trained as my Hermione.”

   This made her bristle, and, if possible, more determined. “I spent the entire summer,” she snapped, stomping through the well trodden muddy paths to the bunker’s entrance. “Memorising hundreds of spells, particularly Defence Against the Dark Arts ones. What’s the point if I just abandon you now?”

   Draco found her hand again, and squeezed it. “Thank you,” he whispered. Despite being worried for her, it meant a lot that she was by his side.

   The group moved hurriedly out into the open air and Neema marched them along past dozens of colourful tents. “So these Rhansyk,” Draco called out to Ric. “Are they like the Fixers?”

   “No,” replied Alex on Godric’s behalf. “The Fixers live in Limbo, like parasites. Rhansyk were once human beings – so twisted and macabre though their polluted souls could only get as far as Limbo when they died.”

   “They lurk in the shadows, in the darkest depths,” said Godric as they raced down another tent alleyway.

   “And they can only partially reform themselves,” said Alex, waving a hand down his own clothes. “Their vision of the world was so warped that’s the best they can imagine themselves.”

   Draco shuddered. “So, really bad guys then?”

   “Nazis, Death Eaters, Klu Klux Klan,” said Alex.   “Those are all just drones in the group. Name any serial killer and they’ll be the lieutenants, and people like Stalin, Pinochet,” he shuddered. “Those boys are still the ones calling the shots.”

   They wound around an area that had been turned into a sort of kitchen. Huge pans fried everything from fiery meats to fragrant rice and vegetables. There was a hog roast and huge women with boards above their heads wondering around yelling _“Hot pies! Get your hot pies!”_ Pancakes, eggs, fish – all were flipped with expert care, a house elf was perched on a high stool, precariously stirring a vat of tomato soup, and a large man in a black _maitre d_ outfit was lovingly icing a cake almost as tall as he was.

   Draco tried to decide if he was hungry or not. He decided on not.

   “And that’s what the Voldemorts have for their army?” clarified Harry. “All these psychopaths?”

   Seamus shrugged. “That we know of so far,” he said. “But I’d imagine they have other recruits lined up too.”

   Draco marvelled at how much Seamus had changed. He was always so hot headed, always looking to pick fights with Draco (quite rightly he reminded himself), but now he’d taken on the responsibility of a whole universe in his stride.

   They were leaving the encampment behind, the tents were becoming sparser and the landscape was changing from a field in spring to a grey, rocky hillside. “Keep your eyes open,” said Neema wearily as they started fanning through brittle trees and bushes. Draco took his wand out and let go of Hermione’s hand.

   “How do we fight them?” he asked, thinking of the Fixers.

   “Like a normal person,” answered Godric. “Just, maybe with slightly tougher skin.”

   Draco swallowed and tried to bring some spells to mind, but his thoughts were frighteningly blank. They proceeded up the increasingly steep hillside, rocks and dirt rolling away beneath their feet as they climbed. The sky above was a stormy grey and buzzards flew in circles over their heads. Draco wondered if they were constructs too or actual birds in Limbo.

   The Roman soldiers had their swords out, as did Ric but Draco could see a wand slotted into the central groove of the blade as well. Seamus had his wand raised just like Draco, Harry and Hermione, but all Alex had was a magnifying glass and a packet of jelly babies.

   “Anything?” asked Cassius, his sandals gripping onto the dirt better than Draco’s trainers. Ric and Neema shook their heads, and Ric crouched down to inspect the ground.

   “This is the way you came?” he asked Neema.

   “Yes,” she said. She pointed upwards with her wand, her bloody scythe still hanging from her back. “Over that ridge, we were mapping out the vista when our lookout was attacked.”

   Draco took a deep breath and carried on his ascent with Harry and Hermione, but Alex came to a stop. “Wait,” he said, waving his hands at Neema. “By ‘that ridge’ do you mean the top of the mountain?”

   Neema squinted and looked up the hill. Draco thought, on consideration, Alex was quite right to call it a mountain. It was deceptively high.

   “Yes,” she said.

   “And that took you how long?” asked Alex, hands on his hip as he readjusted his footing.

   Neema looked up the mountain again. “Three – three and a half hours?”

   “Right,” said Alex spinning round. “Yes, bugger that for a game of chess.” He bent down by a shorn off tree stump a couple of feet in diameter, digging his fingers into the dirt by its base. Draco wondered what he was doing as he pulled upwards, until the stump heaved on a hinge, opening up to reveal a descending staircase. “Shortcut!” he announced, scampering down the steps as dirt from the forest floor pattered down on the stonework.

   Ric shrugged and followed suit, as did Seamus with Puff and Sir Woofsalot at his heels. Cassius raised his eyebrows at Harry. “What strange wonders this place holds,” he said with a shrug, then instructed his men downwards. Harry and Hermione went next, leaving Draco to pull the tree stump shut after them, cutting off the weak sunshine.

   _“Lumos,”_ said Harry and Hermione in unison, lighting up the space they had found themselves in, which looked to Draco to be an awful lot like a cluttered up basement.

   “Alright, alright,” called out Alex, pushing through the crowd back towards the steps Draco was still standing on. “That’s it, down you go,” he indicated to Draco, ushering him onto the floor, before running back up the staircase and opening the door. “Well come on,” he chirped with a jerk of his head. Draco looked back at Harry, who shrugged, so he ascended the steps once more. It took Draco a moment to blink and realised the tree-stump-hatch had transformed into a regular door that was leading into a kitchen. “What the-?” he said, stumbling past Alex into the house.

   “Wipe your feet!” scalded Alex, and Draco did so dutifully on the welcome matt. As people followed him up he found his legs leading him through the kitchen, into a dining area that opened out into a very familiar entrance hall.

   “Hey!” said Draco, surprised. “Alex – this is your house!”

   “Of course it is – feet!” cried Alex as Sir Woofsalot went tearing by Draco, sniffing the floorboards like he’d never seen them before in his life. Alex didn’t waste any time shooing his guests towards his front door, where the punk rock band gave Draco a friendly wave from their painting.

   “All here?” checked Alex, doing a quick headcount. Ric had to duck his head slightly to avoid the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but otherwise they managed to fit into the little entrance hall quite nicely. “Excellent,” said Alex, grabbing a hold of the door handle. “Shall we then?”

   He threw the door open to reveal the impressive view from the mountain top Neema had mentioned.

   That, and the monstrous man stood on the other side, with bloodshot eyes and his clothes stitched into his skin as he stepped forward with a butcher’s knife and slashed Alex from belly to throat.

 

***

 

   Ron and the others had not been walking long down the underground passages of the Salem Academy of Magic. Abbey was in the lead, her wand held high, while the boys traipsed behind. The mine shaft twisted and turned, and the blonde cheerleader seemed very confident of their direction despite Ron’s conviction that every tunnel looked exactly the same.

   His head was still pulsating and his stomach growled. Now that they were far away it seemed kind of stupid they had run away from Rodriguez like that, why hadn’t they just gone back to Crabapple or something? He voiced this opinion to Abbey.

   “Oh honestly,” she signed. “Do you really think we’re gonna scurry around here for the rest of the day?” She looked back at him over her shoulder and he shrugged. “We _are_ goin’ to Madam Crabapple, this is the secret way. It just also happens to be the long way.”

   She turned back around and walked straight into a wall.

   There was moment of stunned silence as she rebounded away from the stone surface blocking their way, her face wide with pain and shock, then she doubled up and grabbed her forehead. “Owww!” she cried, then smacked the stone with her palm. “Holy mama o God an’ all her wacky nephews!”

   “Did we go the wrong way?” asked Chris, which Ron thought was quite a bold move as Abbey hit the wall again.

   “What in tarnation? No we did not go the wrong way, this wall ain’t supposed to be here!”

   “Kind of...looks like it’s supposed to be there,” said A.J. warily as he inspected the edges and the wooden beams supporting it.

   “Well it ain’t,” she snapped, rubbing the graze on her forehead that was already bruising up. “I know these tunnels like the back of my hand.”

   “And how do you-” began Chris.

   “None of your damn business.” She ran her own hands of the stone wall. “There must be somethin’ here.”

   Ron leant in and looked and the stone and the beams; they looked like all the other walls to him, and just as old. _“Alohomora,”_ he said on the off chance, tapping the brick with his wand. Nothing happened, but Abbey’s eyes lit up and she started firing all kinds of spells at the wall. He stepped back.

   “What are you doing?” Chris asked.

   “Tryin’ to open the entrance – this is the only way through an’ I reckon we just have to use our heads to get past.”

   “Why would it be concealed though?” asked A.J. “With a wall?” Ron shrugged.

   “It’s a magic school – the staircases move, paintings swap around for chats, and some doors only open if you can find them.”

   The black boy seemed to think about this, then he walked over to the wall. He picked up a loose stone from the ground and held it a moment, considering. He threw it up and caught it, paused, and then scratched a large rectangle from the ground up, to as high as he could reach. He then followed this with a small circle in the middle on the left; it was a door. He knocked three times. Ron and Abbey stared at him, but Chris let out a soft ‘ohh’ sound.

   “What-?” said Abbey, staring at the wall and shaking her head.

   “Read it in a book,” said A.J.

   “Saw it in a film,” agreed Chris, nodding his head.

   Ron looked between them both. “Are you trying to _make_ a door?” he asked.

   A.J. shrugged. “Thought it was worth a try.”

   Abbey blinked. “I have no idea what either of you just said, but that’s plain stupid.” Ron was just about to agree, when the wall creaked. They turned slowly back to look. Some dust was falling gently to the floor, then the wall creaked again. “Well I’ll be damned,” whispered Abbey. Where A.J. had drawn the faint lines with the stone he was still holding, a crack suddenly appeared on three sides. It began to edge away, and gradually the stone door swung towards them.

   “I cannot believe that worked,” said Ron, his eyebrows raised.

   The doorway stood expectantly before them, and beyond was pitch black. A warm breeze was wafting intermittently through the opening and past their legs.

   “Do we go in?” asked Chris nervously.

   Abbey frowned. “I guess so,” she said slowly. “This is the only way, and we did get it open.” She took a cautious step forward, and the boys followed. Ron heard A.J. mutter behind him.

   “But why was it closed anyway?” he asked under his breath.

   They crossed the threshold slowly; it was impossible to see, but there were faint noises coming from ahead. Ron couldn’t make out what they were, but they didn’t seem too threatening. He was just about to light his wand when there was a definite noise from behind them that was very worrying indeed. The stone door they had just created creaked, and suddenly swung back into place. Abbey gasped as they were plunged into total darkness, but it didn’t last for long. Blue torches started to light one by one in quick succession along the wall, illuminating the room where they stood then making its way backwards.

   They were no longer in the mine shaft, that was for sure. It was more like a large stone anti-chamber with a very high ceiling. They weren’t able to see the full extent of the room until the lights reached the other end, and it wasn’t until then that they could see it wasn’t a warm breeze at their feet at all.

   It was breathing.

   Ron felt his knees go weak. He couldn’t really find the words to greet the sight before him, and neither did the others. They, likewise, just stared open mouthed. After several seconds that felt like several minutes, Ron felt his voice clamber out of his mouth.

   “Hello Fluffy,” he said in a tone that was both defeated and hysterical at the same time.

   “Fluffy!?” shrieked Abbey as the massive three headed dog started to stir sleepily. He yawned and blinked his many eyes in a confused sort of way. He seemed unable to process the intrusion into his home, but he was quickly getting used to it. A growl escaped one of his mouths as another head shook.

   “What do we do – the door’s gone,” hissed A.J. stepping backwards and patting the blank wall. His eyes never left the dog. Ron knew they had maybe seconds before Fluffy fully regained his senses and ate them for lunch.

   “Music,” he cried, his voice hoarse. “Anything, we need music.”

   “Wh-” began Abbey.

   “It puts him to sleep!” he cried. They didn’t have time for explanations, the giant dog’s hackles were raised and he took a slow step towards the group. His growls were shaking Ron’s teeth.

   “Someone sing!”

   Abbey took a deep breath and opened her mouth, but it wasn’t her who sang. _“Sometimes I wish I could,”_ came Chris’ voice, somewhat strangled by terror. _“Turn back time, impossible as it may seem.”_ Fluffy stopped walking. Chris was flat and croaky, but it was doing the trick. _“But I wish I could, so bad, ba-by.”_ Fluffy’s eyes fluttered and he slumped where he stood. The group edged forward as Chris continued to sing. A door was now visible on the far wall the other side of the dog curling up into a ball.

   _“Quit playin’ games with my heart,”_ crooned Chris as Abbey joined in with him. They tip-toed along as Fluffy started to snore. “ _My heart, my heart. Before you tear us apart.”_ They were harmonising now, Ron thought that was a little unnecessary. _“I should have known from the start.”_ They reached the door and eased it open. “The start,” muttered Chris as they wrestled with the latch. “Before you got in my heart.”

   They slammed the door shut as Fluffy barked loudly. They gasped for breath as relief swept through them. Abbey laughed slightly hysterically and smiled.

   “With all the millions of rock CDs scattered in your car,” said A.J. good humouredly. “You picked the Backstreet Boys to save our lives?”

   “Hey, I panicked,” replied Chris.

   “Why!” shouted Ron, his fear being replace by anger. “On _Earth_ was that three headed dog under your school!”

   Abbey bristled. “How the Hell should I know,” she countered. “How’d you know singing would make it fall asleep like that?”

   “Long story,” muttered Ron as looked about their new surroundings. They were back in the mine shaft, but it was already apparent that it stretched off into another large room about twenty feet ahead of them. This one was door-free, and a soft glow was spilling out into the corridor from the entrance to the new room.

   “Well what fresh Hell is this?” sighed Abbey, and stomped off to the new room, wand poised. The boys took only a moment to consider before chasing after her. Who knew what was down there? Abbey stopped just beyond the threshold of the archway, put her hands on her hips and stared upwards. “Huh,” was all she said.

   Ron peered over her shoulder as Chris and A.J. stopped by her side. It only took a moment for Ron to realised what they were looking at, and he gave a heartfelt groan. “What are they, birds?” asked Chris.

   “No,” grumbled Ron, and sat back down on the other side, facing back the way they came. “They are not birds.” He stared at the blank wall and could faintly hear Fluffy barking and growling from beyond, probably annoyed that his lunch had got away.

   “Well what are they then?” demanded Abbey, as the three of them came back out to join him. He rubbed his forehead and didn’t look at them, even though he knew they were watching. What did this mean, why was it happening? He started trying to piece together all the events since they’d got to the school, even before. He decided it was far too much; living like a Muggle, finding Salem, falling into the pensive, the fight with Rodriguez. Why was everything happening at once, all on top of each other? It was very inconsiderate of the universe.

   Someone wacked their trainer into his own, and he dully looked up to see Abbey, unsurprisingly, scowling. “What are those bird things?” she snapped again. “And whilst you feel like sharing, how in the Fairyin’ Forest did you know how to calm the damn dog down?”

   Ron stared at them with tired eyes. Would they believe him? He wasn’t even really sure himself.

   “Harry,” he said in disbelief.

   “Who’s Harry?” snapped Abbey, but Ron was already shaking his head.

   “No – I mean – this is what happened to Harry. He went to a reality where he was needed, where he knew what was happening.” Ron swallowed and rubbed his throbbing head. “Then Malfoy,” he tried not to spit the name out. “He knew about the school being attacked or whatever, and now...”

   He trailed off. “Now what?” asked Chris, looking curiously up into the room.

   “Now I’m here,” said Ron simply. “I’m here, and I knew how to calm the dog down because I met him before. And they aren’t birds – they’re keys.”

   “Keys?” said A.J. with a frown.

   “Yep,” Ron replied, almost cheerfully. “Keys with wings. There are broomsticks in the corner, and you have to catch the right key to open the next door.” A.J. continued to frown, then darted back into the room. He returned a moment later with a Nimbus 2001 held in his hands, and a look of disbelief on his face.

   “These don’t really fly though, do they?” he said weakly.

   “Of course they do,” said Abbey, snatching it off him to inspect it. “Okay, when were you down here though,” she asked Ron. “You only just got to the school-” But Ron’s head shaking stopped her flow of thought.

   “It wasn’t here, it was at my school, in my world.” He stood up so he could face them properly and he dusted off his trousers. “The teachers were protecting something and they put up a bunch of charms and stuff to keep people away, it was kind of like this, only there was a killer plant, and a giant chess board, and-”

   “Whoa, whoa, whoa – hold up,” said Abbey, waving him down with her free hand. “They were protectin’ somethin’ that bad at a school? Why wasn’t it at Fort Knox, or Gringotts?” Ron rubbed his head again.

   “Because Dumbledore didn’t think it was safe enough. Maybe he had it at Hogwarts here like in my world, then with You-Know-Who running round he moved it here, to this school? Crabapple said they were friends.”

   He couldn’t help but smile. That was pretty good reasoning if he didn’t say so himself.

   No one spoke for a moment, lost in thought. “What were they hiding?” asked A.J. eventually.

   “The Philosopher’s Stone,” he replied to three blank faces. “It um...it’s this little red stone,” he explained, “there’s only one of them and if you use it, it can like give you loads of treasure and it can heal you, I mean you could live forever.”

   “Aah,” said Abbey with a smile. “Y’all mean the Sorcerer’s Stone – we learned about that in History o Magic.” Ron scowled, he knew what it was called, they went to enough trouble to find it.

   “No, it was definitely-”

   “It ain’t real though, it’s just a myth?” Abbey put her hands on her hips, and almost dared Ron to contradict her. He was too tired to care though.

   “Well,” said Ron. “Harry almost died getting it, so that’s real enough for me – but who knows!” he said, throwing out his hands. “Maybe your teachers have just happened to use two of the same obstacles?”

   “Was someone dying?” asked A.J.

   Ron raised his eyebrows. “Sorry?”

   “Why did you go after it before?” he elaborated further. “If it was so well hidden and protected, how did you know about it and why on Earth brave a three headed dog to find it?”

   Ron slumped on the wall and thought back to all those years ago. That was the start of all those crazy life threatening shenanigans; that midnight duel that almost made them Fluffy sized doggie treats. Bloody Draco bloody Malfoy.

   “Long story,” he said again, “but You-Know-Who had someone trying to steal it to heal himself from where Harry all but killed him when he was a baby.”

   “But,” said Abbey, shaking her head. “You-Know-Who isn’t dead, or even nearly dead. He’s practically ruling most of Europe.

   Ron shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t actually want it, maybe it’s just hidden here and we happened to find the obstacles. Or maybe he is after it as a ‘just-in-case’.”

   Abbey visibly shuddered.   “You don’t think that’s what Rodriguez was after, do you?”

   Ron shrugged again. “I thought he wanted me, for the prophecy?”

   “Shhh,” said Chris suddenly, and everyone stopped taking. It was totally silent.

   “There’s nothing,” whispered Ron, a little annoyed at being told to ‘shh’.

   “Yeah,” whispered Chris back. “Exactly. Fluffy’s stopped barking.” He was right, Ron realised. But that wasn’t necessarily a problem he thought.

   “Maybe he fell back asleep by himself?” he suggested, but before the words had left his mouth he heard another noise against the quiet. Someone was singing.

   “Well that can’t be good,” he said through dry lips.


	8. The Show Must Go On (Part Two)

Chapter Five - Part Two

 

   Hermione flung herself at the back door of the Potters’ house, ripping the spells she’d put on it down with frenzied determination. It didn’t take long before she was wrenching the door open, and she spun around to reach out for Terry Boot.

   “Come on!” she screeched, but Terry was rooted to the spot, his eyes still on the other Harry, zombified and frozen in the middle of the kitchen.

   His whole body was tense like a spring. “I can’t,” he said pleadingly. “I can’t just leave them.”

   “We have to find who did this,” shouted Hermione as the townsfolk beat against the spells she’d erected to keep them in the living room. “We have to stop them, so everyone will go back to normal!”

   Terry trembled, then turned to look at her, really take her in. “You promise we’ll fix this?” he asked. “Because I don’t know you from Eve, and they’re my best friends.”

   Hermione bristled and the zombies moaned. “You have my word,” she growled, her heart pounding against her chest.

   He curled his hands into fists, nodded once, then stormed towards the door. Hermione spun on her heels, and only as she crossed the threshold did she realise that it was raining outside.

   In fact it wasn’t raining. It was a flat out monsoon.

   She gasped as the icy cold water doused her from head to toe in seconds, but she couldn’t let that stop her. She slammed the back door shut and began firing protection spells at it.

   “We should just run!” cried Terry, shielding his glasses from the pounding rain and edging up the garden.

“This will slow them down!” Hermione cried over her shoulder, then turned to cast another spell.

   She never got the chance.

   Despite the noise and force of the rain, there was a moment, just a moment, where the pressure rose, and her hair fought against the downpour to lift from her scalp.

   Then the pressure popped, and the door blew off its hinges. All the windows on the first floor of the house shattered outwards with a roar and Hermione shot backwards like a ragdoll, slamming down onto the lawn as glass and brickwork rained down around her.

   For a while, there was just blackness and the ringing in her ears. Her hands fumbled, scraping painfully on jagged edges, searching for her wand.

   A vibrating sort of noise resonated around her skull. It came a second time, before she could work out someone was calling her name. “Terry?” she said back, but she couldn’t hear her own voice, just felt the word humming up her throat.

Slowly she peeled her eyes open, squinting against the weak afternoon sunlight and the debris caught in her eyelashes.

   “Hermione?” called Terry, leaning over her. She breathed in shallowly and swallowed, her throat dry and scratchy.

   “Wha...” she breathed. “What happened?” Everything sounded like she was underwater and her limbs wouldn’t move like she wanted them too. Terry helped her sit, and she felt rather than heard the glass from the window panes tickling from her clothes.

   He shook his head. “Explosion?” he said bewildered.

   Hermione struggled with a wave of dizziness. “The people,” she stammered. “Are they hurt?”

   Terry scrutinized the house. “Don’t think so,” he said. “More bang than anything else from the looks of it, no big fire ball but you were right by the door.” He looked ashen and taught, but as soon as her vision stopped swimming she pulled her eyes away from her, snapping her attention to the back door.

   It was lying three feet from her, and there was already zombies clambering into the kitchen. The spells she’d cast had been on the door though, and that wasn’t going to stop much from its place on the grass.

   “Go,” she grunted, heaving herself up on him. “Need to go, now.”

   “But what was that?” asked Terry, looking up at the house as they stumbled onto the crunchy grass.

   “Nugh!” shrieked Hermione suddenly, pain lacing through her feet, and she collapsed to the ground. She was only wearing socks, and she stared at her feet incredulously until she remembered her shoes were on the living room floor. Blood was seeping through her dirty left sock, mixing with the rain, and she squeezed her foot gently.

   Panicked, she looked back at the kitchen where the townspeople were fumbling towards the backdoor.

   “Need my wand!” she cried, searching the immediate vicinity. “They’ll get out, magic’s gone.” She still couldn’t hear properly over the terrible ringing from the explosion.

   _“Accio wand!”_ cried Terry, and Hermione peered through the pouring rain.

   “Where is it?” she cried after a few moments past. “Did you do the spell right?”

   “Yes!” snapped Terry. “It’s probably under the rubble or something – what do you mean the magic’s gone?”

   “We need to find it!” she shouted instead. She could barely hear him what with the tinnitus and thundering rain working against her, she just felt like she needed to turn the volume dial up on everything.

   Terry got his answer though, as the zombified Lily Potter stumbled out of the half destroyed kitchen and into the pounding rain.

   “YeAGH!” cried Terry in horror, and quickly tried to blast her back with an _‘Expelliarmus!’,_ but all she did was crackle with more blue electricity. “How do you raise a shield!” he cried, taking a step backwards.

   _“Protego Totalum,”_ said Hermione without thinking. She’d managed to pull a small chunk of glass from her left foot, but she was scared to move for fear of imbedding any more. She desperately scanned the area as Terry threw the spell at the Potter’s house, but the rain made it impossible to see anything in the gloomy afternoon light, and it was only after she’d stared at the house for a full minute did she realise half the wall of the kitchen and adjoining room had been blasted outwards.

   “Do the hole too!” she cried at Terry as more zombies approached. He was quick to aim the incantation where she pointed, but Hermione could tell his motions weren’t quite right and the spell wouldn’t last long.

   “I need my wand,” she cried miserably, staring mournfully at all the rubble littering the patio. How could it be trapped where she couldn’t find it, she needed it, it was like she’d lost a limb.

   Her breaths were too short and shallow, she was just lining her tongue with rainwater. Her head was still full of the ringing noise and black spots were dotting in front of her eyes.

   “Don’t move!” called Terry, then swept up all the glass into a pile. He ran to her, throwing a dubious glance at his handiwork on the house. “Show me your foot,” he instructed.

   She lifted up her left foot to show him the bloody sole. He yanked off the sock and the rain cleaned away the excess blood in a second. _“Episkey,”_ he breathed, and the cut healed over, providing her with instant relief.

   “Take my trainers,” he said, pulling them off without even undoing the laces. “We have to get out of here.”

   “I’m not leaving my wand!” Hermione shouted, not even looking at the shoes.

   “Do it and I’ll search!” he snapped back, then began physically heaving at the chunks of wall that had come loose from the house. _“Accio wand!”_ he kept repeating as he went. _“Accio wand!”_

   Hermione shakily reached out for the nearest trainer, her sluggish mind tripping over too many thoughts. Why had Terry given her his shoes? Who would do this to Godric’s Hollow, and why? Who had taken out the bottom of the house, the cursed people were in no state to do magic?

   Unless...

   “Leave it,” grunted Hermione, forcing her second foot into Terry’s other shoe.

   “It’s got to be here somewhere,” countered Terry, but Hermione, was already backing away.

   “What if the explosion came from whoever cursed the town?” she cried, trying not to raise her voice too much. What if they were making their way out to the garden right now?

   Terry straightened and looked at her through the rain.

   “Look out!” she shrieked. One of the zombies, a girl in a supermarket checkout uniform, had pushed her way through the first shield charm Terry had erected, and now others were following.

   “No!” he cried, trying a few hexes at the girl, but she and the others just stumbled, crackled blue, then carried on.

   “Try _‘Impedimenta!’”_ Hermione suggested, hugging herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this helpless, and whilst Terry hurled her attacking spell at the zombies, she scraped her hands on the bricks and cement, trying in vain to locate her wayward wand.

   “Hermione!”

   She snapped up straight, and Terry and her briefly met gazes. He hadn’t spoken, he’d been too busy with the zombies.

   “Up here!” the voice screeched over the rain, and the two of them looked up in surprise.

   Sarah Potter was hanging out the top right window.

   _“SARAH!”_ screamed Hermione, shock washing over her in dizzying waves. How did she get there, just _what_ was going on?

   “I blew up the stairs!” she yelled down to them tearfully, her black hair falling around her head like a curtain. “Something’s wrong with my family, I think they’re sick!”

   The checkout girl wailed as the hoard continued their advancement, and Hermione’s attention jerked back downwards. She shook her head frantically at Terry. “We have to go,” she gasped, her ears still ringing. “We have to go, we have to go!”

   _“Impedimenta!”_ cried Terry again, knocking the zombies backwards. Harry was part of them now; there must be some part of their curse that deflected and absorbed the spells the two of them had been casting, that’s why they were wearing off and having as little as effect as they were.

   “Sarah you need to get down here, right now!” Hermione yelled at her. At least it had been her to cause the explosion, not anyone untoward, but that didn’t stop the cursed townsfolk advancing, and it also didn’t mean that any bad guys weren’t nearby.

   “How?” shrieked Sarah, flopping her sodden hair out of her eyes. “I blew up the stairs!”

   Once again Hermione stared hopelessly at the debris to try and catch a glimpse of her wand, but of course it was useless. She cupped her hands over her eyes and squinted up into the torrential rain. “Drop your wand down to me!” she instructed.

   “Why?” asked Sarah in a high pitched voice.

   “I’ve lost mine!” answered Hermione as Terry and her moved away from the ever closer zombies. “We don’t have any time, give it to me!”

   Sarah screwed up her face, reached out her right hand, and opened out her fingers.   Hermione watched avidly as the little stick of wood tumbled downwards, and she fumbled, trying to catch it. She eventually managed to scoop it off the ground, and she swung her arm around to the curse people.

   _“Incarcerous,”_ she screamed, intending to bind them all with ropes, but even as the word left her mouth Hermione could feel her power greatly diminished by the use of Sarah’s wand rather than her own. Only a few of them resulted in getting rope wrapped around their feet, and even then it didn’t tie proper knots. Some of them just got slapped with the ends, which only made them more irritable.

   She stepped back in shock, then took the split second decision to leave Terry too it and get Sarah down. A levitation spell would be much easier, she insisted to herself as the zombies shuffled forwards. She wasn’t creating anything, this one would work much better.

   “Come on!” shrieked Sarah, and Hermione shook herself straight, the townspeople almost within touching distance.

   _“Mobilicorpus!”_ she cried, giving it everything she had.

   Sarah gasped as her body jerked upwards, then Hermione tensed every one of her muscles as she shakily guided the youngest Potter out into the open air, then brought her down behind her on the lawn.

   _“RUN!”_ roared Terry as she stumbled to her feet, and sprinted towards the back fence, Hermione right behind them both.

   The zombies wailed in distress as the trio bolted down the garden, but the rain swallowed up most of their moaning. Or maybe it was just Hermione’s impaired hearing that was hindering her. They scrambled through a few trees and up a slight mound that ended in a fence that ran the entire perimeter of the garden. Sarah didn’t pause as she grabbed one of the lower branches and hefted herself up the trunk, slamming her feet on the wooden panel and swung herself over the top of the fence.

   Hermione felt a fresh wave of nausea roll over her that had nothing to do with the explosion or her persistent headache. She was pretty certain she couldn’t get over that fence.

   “Come on!” cried Terry, cupping his hands. “I’ll give you a boost!” She glanced back at the zombies who were already frighteningly close, and saw no option but to just go for it. She shoved Terry’s trainer into his hand, and jumped against him, reaching for the fence top.

   After a very undignified struggle, she and Terry managed to heave her body upwards so she over balanced at the top and tumbled through a thick clump of branches and landed painfully in a slick of mud.

   “Are you okay!” cried Sarah as Hermione coughed and spluttered. She was scratched all over, particularly on her neck and right arm, where the branches had got through her clothes and ripped them. She nodded, coughed some more and handed Sarah her wand back.

   “Thanks,” she spluttered. It was practically no good to her, but Hermione still wished she could keep it.

   Terry came flying over the fence. He slipped a little in the mud but other than that had a much more successful vault than Hermione, despite his lack of shoes.

   He helped pull her to her feet. “Let’s go,” he rasped, his eyes wide.

   They’d not moved more than a few paces before the fence began to shake and creak, dirty hands slapping over the top.

   Sarah seemed to know a route to take, but Hermione couldn’t see any path. She found herself reaching again and again for the wand that wasn’t there, and each time she experienced a flurry of panic, fear and frustration. Where could it of possibly have gone, how could it abandon her like this, now?

   “Where are we going?” asked Terry, and Sarah automatically slowed.

   “I don’t know,” she breathed, tearful. “What the Hell’s going on, what’s happened to my family?”

   “We can’t stop,” insisted Terry. “We’ll explain on the way, but we need to get out of the town.”

   “But are they dead?” she cried, looking back the way they’d come. Her makeup was streaming down her face, and every time she wiped her face it was more like she’d never even put it on.

   “No,” said Terry grabbing her arm. “But they will be if they’re left like that, so we need to get out and get help.”

   They came out into an actual path with the trees they’d been weaving through on their right, and a wall of rhododendrons to the left.

   “They’re under a spell,” said Hermione, her feet flapping Terry’s too-big trainers to the ground with every step. “Like the Imperius Curse but en masse.”

   “Can it be reversed?” asked Sarah eagerly as they raced down the path. As nice as it was to see if anything was coming, Hermione was feeling very exposed by the lit wands.

   “Yes,” she replied. “But we need to find whoever’s casting the incantation and stop them.” And find my wand, she added to herself, rubbing her sore neck where the trees had gouged her.

   “No,” said Terry slowly. It was becoming his favourite word. “We need to contact the school and someone _qualified_ needs to come and sort this mess out.”

   Hermione didn’t say anything, but she fully intended to keep her eyes open for anything that could help them. She, Harry and Ron had never really had much luck hanging around waiting for adults to fix things.

   “My dad,” said Sarah, the hint of a sob in her throat. “He was...he looked so...”

   “He’s not really a zombie, I promise,” said Terry hastily as the path veered left. “None of them are.” His voice caught ever so slightly, and Hermione thought of how they’d had to leave Harry immobilized in the Potter’s kitchen.  

   “But what’s going on, did they come from an alternate reality or something, did they travel through Limbo too?”

   “What?” said Hermione, confused, but as turned she was greeted by a moaning, stumbling man in a white lab coat, buzzing with blue electricity, climbing his way out of the trees to her right.

   “GO!” she shrieked, steering the other two towards the rhododendrons. The rain hammered down as they forced a route between two of the shrubs, and Hermione took one last look over her shoulder to see several more zombies stumbling out of the tree line.

   It was dark behind the bushes, dense with trees clinging desperately onto the leaves that Autumn had tried to snatch from them. The rain was attempting to pick up where the season had left off, and even protected by the canopy the trio still found themselves getting drenched as they ran, the weight of their sodden clothes doing their best to slow them down with soggy trainers and clinging denim.

   “Ah,” cried Terry, jerking one of his muddy feet upwards and brushing debris off the sock. “Son of a...” He limped on it as the girls slowed, but he waved them on. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he called over the torrent, picking up his run again. “Sarah do you know where we’re headed?”

   She swung her head left and right, pushing through the scratchy branches, and Hermione felt a pang of guilt for accepting Terry’s shoes off him. She vowed as soon as it was safe to do so to give them back. “Not sure,” Sarah replied. “I think the town’s that way,” she pointed right. “So the main road must be more to the left.”

   They bolted onwards, stumbling on roots, rocks and slippery leaves, fighting with tree branches that seemed determined to hold them back for their zombie pursuers. “What did you mean, Limbo?” asked Hermione.

   “Can we escape first and quiz later!” cried Terry irritably, but Sarah seemed keen to talk.

   “I was in Limbo,” she said breathlessly. Hermione couldn’t blame her, her thighs were burning and her lungs were on fire. She wasn’t built for all these bursts of speed she’d necessitated in the past few hours.

   “Limbo?” she repeated.

   Sarah nodded as they mercifully found themselves in a small glade devoid of foliage. The grass look lush and green thanks to the sudden cloudburst, but it squelched into mud as they stomped their way through.

   “After you guys got pushed into the different realities, the school got pulled back into Limbo, the space between realities.”

   “Seriously?” asked Terry, interested despite his earlier protests.

   “Harry and Ron are in different realities?” said Hermione. She’d hoped that she’d been the only one to leap dimensions. She realised how foolish that had been in retrospect. “What happened to the school, what on Earth went so wrong?”

   “The school’s okay now,” said Sarah firmly as they stumbled down a slope. “But yeah, Harry and Ron went to two new universes apparently.”

   “How do you know all-” began Hermione, but Terry suddenly flung his arms outwards, and the three of them staggered to a halt. He looked silently back at the girls, then they peered ahead through the branches.

   They had reached a main road, flanked by trees either side, and like the road they had walked into town on, there were several abandoned cars littered on the tarmac. There were also at least a dozen zombies milling around, walking into the empty cars or just standing around moaning in the rain.

   “Which way?” whispered Terry, easing back.

   “Left,” said Sarah with a nod. They crept as quietly as they could along the tree line, eyeing up the drifting townspeople that were shuffling their way along the road. But it became apparent that something was wrong very quickly, and within a minute Sarah stopped them again. “This isn’t right,” she said, squinting through the trees.

   There was a small roundabout up ahead, with a petrol station opposite and a pub a little further on.

   “No,” said Sarah, shaking her head. “No, no, that was the other way?”

   “What?” asked Terry.

   Sarah waved her hand. “This isn’t the way _out_ of town, this is going _into_ town.” She screwed up her brow and shook her head. “I don’t know...” Without another word she began stomping back the way they had come, and Hermione automatically followed, eyes on the cursed people loitering on the other side of the foliage. It was a good job it was raining so hard as it disguised the noise they were making pushing through the branches. Hermione wiggled her finger in her ear and tried to lessen the ringing from the explosion once more. It didn’t work.

   “Did we go the wrong way?” hissed Terry, but Sarah just waved angrily for him to be quiet. Hermione recognised as they approached the cars they had seen in the first instance, and Sarah lead them past, the same zombies tripping over their feet as they got confused by their own reflections in the car windows.

   It only took a few minutes more walking to realise they had a real problem on their hands.

   “What?” snapped Sarah, stopping abruptly, holding her hands up in front of her. They were looking at the roundabout, the petrol station and the pub.

   “Did we...?” began Terry, but he trailed off. Probably because there was no logical explanation.

   Sarah turned back to them. “We went both ways!” she hissed, glancing anxiously at a nearby zombie gnawing on a red post box. “I’m not going crazy am I?”

   Hermione shook her head. “No,” she agreed. “We went both ways along the road, there must be some sort or curse in place to loop you back round if you approach the town’s boarder.”

   “Another curse!” rasped Terry.

   Hermione looked at him helplessly. “Well I didn’t do it, did I?” she whispered. “It makes sense though.”

   “In what way?” asked Sarah.

   “It means nobody can leave,” growled Terry. “There’s no way out, and no way to contact anyone. We’re trapped.”

   They let his words sink in, the rain pattering on their heads. “Okay,” said Sarah, nodding and biting her lip. “Okay then, so...we have to stop it then.” Hermione could see her shaking as she stared ahead through the trees. “We have to find who’s doing this, _why_ they’re doing it, and stop them.”

   Terry looked like he was lost for words. He pulled his sodden woolly hat off and ran his hand through his hair, gripping onto sandy brown tendrils and yanking them. “Parvati was right,” he croaked, and Hermione raised her eyebrows.

   “What?” she whispered. Terry didn’t look at her, but carried on talking, like they weren’t there.

   “I just wanted to help, I never imagined...” He suddenly threw his hat through the rain and it splattered onto a tree trunk. He let out a small grunt of frustration, but it was enough to snap Hermione’s head around to see if the zombies had heard.

   They had.

   “Move!” she hissed, running forward, snatching up Terry’s hat and pelting though the trees. Their cover ended abruptly though, and they were suddenly faced with the dilemma of heading into town, or moving back the way they’d come, where the zombies from the house were probably still stumbling through the foliage.

   Hermione gave Terry back his hat and chose the former, and quickly scanned the road before them. She saw a small newsagent’s nestled between a bike shop and a take-away chicken place. The lights were off and there didn’t appear to any zombies that near to them or it.   “There,” she said, and pointed. “Go!”

   Without waiting, she dashed out of the trees, across the road, grass, car park and slammed into the glass door. She glance left and right to see if they’d been spotted, and when it seemed like they hadn’t, she waited as Sarah and Terry reached her before flinging open the door.

   The shop was eerily quiet as they stood in the dim light and panted. Rainwater ran off them and splattered on the linoleum floor, and Hermione scanned the area tensely, looking for any sign of life.

   She grabbed Terry’s arm and pointed silently. In the back right corner was a plump Indian woman with thick glasses and a tatty looking cardigan. She was swaying back and forth, the blue electricity occasionally crackling over her body.

   Hermione made a motion for the other two to stay put as she carefully rushed down the aisle, but of course they followed anyway. She’d spotted a door on the back wall though and formed a quick plan.

   As luck would have it, a mop was propped up by the kitchen roll and dishwasher tablets, and Hermione snagged it like a weapon. She looked at it, then looked at the woman. “Do you think one of you could open that door?” she whispered as quietly as she could, glad now they’d not followed her instructions and followed her.

   Terry nodded and darted from the end of the aisle, reaching for the handle as he splattered water onto the floor, making it slippery.

   “Careful,” worried Sarah as he skidded slightly.

   The zombie woman looked up, her interested piqued, and she took a shaky step forward, moaning and groping hungrily for him.

   _“Alohomora!”_ said Terry, and Hermione watched enviously as his wand lit up, unlocking the door. He flung it open to reveal a short corridor with a couple of closed doors. “What now?” he asked, eying up the woman.

   “Step away,” instructed Hermione, and Terry darted back towards them. The woman stopped, turned her head, then changed direction towards the group. Sarah had her wand held up by Hermione’s ear.

   “What do I do?” she asked with a little squeak.

   “Nothing,” said Hermione, watching the woman move slowly forward like a hawk. She hefted up the mop, still wet and dripping like they were, and waited.

   The woman didn’t notice, she just gave out a happy sort of moan and bobbed her head.

   “Come on,” muttered Hermione, hoping her plan wasn’t massively flawed. “Come on, come on.”

   The woman stepped in front of the open door. Hermione lunged forward with the soft head of the mop, slamming it into her round belly. The zombie woman grunted, and Hermione felt immensely sorry for her, but it didn’t stop her from ramming the mop into her, forcing her to stumble into the waiting corridor. Hermione got her a few feet in, then threw the mop down, lurched forward, and slammed the door shut.

   She leant her back on it and panted, the other two staring. “Okay,” she said, nodding. “Okay. How about we have a little chat now about what the Hell is going on?”

 

***

 

   _“Alex!”_ bellowed Ric as the Roman centurions surged forward furiously at the demonic creature standing outside the Watcher’s front door. Harry Potter watched in horror as Alex fell to the floor in shock, blood splattering in all directions as the soldiers beat back the man. Neema and Seamus piled out the door too, angry spells flying from both their wands, and the front door banged backwards into the coat rack.

   “Alex,” cried Godric again, falling to his knees and reaching around the other man to support his back and neck. Hermione pulled out her wand and ran over to their side, fretting, and Draco bolted to the door, his wand also out. Harry felt like his feet were routed to the ground.

   “Oh bloody Hell,” griped Alex, annoyed, and Harry had to blink in surprise. The Watcher wiped his hands on his chest where the butcher’s knife had sliced through him. “I loved that t-shirt, it was vintage.”

   “Oh you idiot,” breathed Godric, pulling him into a hug and kissing the top of his head. “I thought we’d lost you.”

   “Me?” said Alex, offended. “I’ve been imagining myself into existence for fifteen hundred years, takes more than some dead serial killer to get rid of me.”

   “Are you sure you’re alright?” asked Hermione dubiously, boldly patting his chest were the man’s knife has cut through clothes and skin.

   “Ow, careful,” said Alex, coughing and batting her hand away. “Still fragile.”

   “Sorry,” she said anxiously, clutching her bloody hands together, and Draco rubbed her back.

   “So you can just think yourself better?” he asked. Alex nodded but Godric suddenly stood and bolted out the door.

   “In theory,” coughed Alex, propping himself up.

   “That was a Rhansyk then?” asked Harry peering out the door as a spell went shooting past the forest landscape.

   Alex nodded again and fluttered his eyelids. The puppy, Sir Woofsalot, climbed cautiously up into Alex lap, testing with each paw before he put it down on the bloody clothes. He propped up on Alex’s shoulder and began to lick his face.

   “I’m fine, I’m fine,” said Alex dismissively to the dog, but then started coughing, thick wet hacking sounds that left his hand dripping with blood. “Though I could probably do with a cup of tea.”

   A sound from the kitchen made Harry’s head snap around. He checked the others, but none of them seemed to have heard. Had he imagined it?

   Seamus threw his hands on the door frame, blocking out the weak sunlight. “You dead yet?” he asked cheerily.

   “Oh still very dead,” countered Alex, sitting up straight. “Just not going anywhere soon. You get old Jack?”

   “Jack?” said Seamus as Neema came to stand by his side, panting.

   “Yes,” said Alex, rolling his eyes, which wasn’t quite as patronising on his pale, blood splattered face as it could have been. “Did the top hat and tails completely escape your notice? Jack the Ripper.”

   Hermione gagged as Seamus scowled. “I assumed he was late for a wedding,” he said sardonically. “But no, he ran off, couldn’t catch him.”

   Alex tutted. “No manners,” he whispered, managing a weak smile before coughing again.

   Harry had an uneasy feeling in his stomach, and couldn’t seem to take his eyes from the dining room leading to the kitchen where they’d entered the house.

   “Let’s get going,” he heard Ric saying from outside as he edged back into the other room. He was sure he’d heard some sort of noise.

   “Harry?” said Draco, coming to his side. “What is it?”

   “Dunno,” said Harry honestly. It was probably just stress and sleep deprivation playing tricks on his mind, but he carried on into the dining room anyway.

   A shaggy looking man walked in from the kitchen, examining a shiny potato masher. He looked up to see Harry and Draco.

   “Uh oh,” said Draco as Harry took in the dirty man’s red eyes, the fur scraps sewn into his skin, his claw like nails and rusting horned helmet. The man let out a animalistic bellow, and began banging his helmet with the potato masher. Within seconds several other similar looking men were clamouring by his side, desperate to get at Harry and Draco like a pack of angry gorillas.

   “We’ve got more company!” yelled Harry, running with Draco back to the front door. _“Expelliarmus!”_ he cried over his shoulder, sending most of the barbarians flailing into Alex’s dining room walls, dislodging several ornamental plates.

   “Out of my house, _out of my house,”_ demanded Alex, letting himself be hoisted up by Godric as the group joined their fellows out in the forest. Harry didn’t need telling twice as the Rhansyk chased him out the door. Seamus waited until he’d cleared the threshold before firing a spell over his head that swept the barbarians off their feet, out of the house and over the mountain’s ridge top edge.

   Alex fell onto the front door, slamming it shut into a particularly large tree trunk, removing all sign that there was ever an entrance there. “And stay out!” he yelled, spitting a gob of blood onto the dried leaves by his feet. He may not have died from his injury, thought Harry, but he was most definitely looking worse for wear. He slid down the tree and came to rest on the ground.

   “Report,” barked Godric, and Cassius came running to his side.

   “Two foes,” said the Roman clearly. Harry couldn’t help but look around; there had been two of them outside? “My men destroyed one, but with two fatalities on our side, and the other, the one in the black clothing, escaped.”

   “I’m sorry for your men,” said Godric sincerely, clasping Cassius on the shoulder. “But good work on the kill.”

   Puff the dragon was looking over the ridge, worrying his teddy bear between his stubby, clawed hands. “Erm,” he said in that winey, nasal tone. “Those humans, they are coming back up.”

   Harry and Godric were the closest and darted to the cliff edge first. Puff was right – the barbaric looking demons were climbing clumsily back up the rock face towards them. “Oh no you don’t,” snarled Draco by Harry’s side, and began blasting them off the rock to fall into the valley below. Harry didn’t need persuading to do the same, nor Hermione or Seamus, and soon the steep slope was littered with falling, rolling Rhansyk.

   “Now what?” demanded Puff as they stepped away from the mountain’s edge. “She,” he said in an accusing tone, pointing at Neema who was cleaning her scythe. “Showed you where she was attacked, now what are you going to do?”

   “LOOK OUT!” screamed Hermione, a spell flying from her wand that made Harry duck. He spun to see where she was aiming, and his stomach plummeted to his shoes.

   Jack was back, and he’d brought some friends.

   They were teaming through the dead and dying trees, like a pack of wolves. Harry saw Jack the Ripper, his mouldy black Victorian hat jammed on his skeletal head. He looked like a walking corpse, apart from his eyes which Harry would have sworn were on fire. Beside him, leaping at the already attacking Roman centurions, were the Nazi officers Neema had spoken of, along with some of the barbarians, Klan’s men, and a few random pirates and gym teachers.

   _“Expulso!”_ yelled Harry, and the ground erupted, throwing several Rhansyk to their backs where Godric and the Romans made short work of them. Harry had to turn as they laid in with their swords; evil or not it was too much for him to watch. Which is probably the only reason he saw the woman leap at him from the cliff edge.

   He darted and threw up his arms, but she still managed to tackle his waste and wrestle him to the ground. There was a flurry of commotion around him as people took on the Rhansyk, and the two rolled on the ground, grabbing at each other’s throats.

   She pinned him to the forest floor. She was as black as the night but he could still see the tattoos dotted around her eyes. Her threadbare scraps of cloth stitched to her skin didn’t seem so out of place with all her piercings and jewellery made out of little bones.

   “Ha-rry Pott-er,” she rasped in a thick Caribbean accent, then smiled showing rotten black teeth as she dug her nails into his wrists. Harry looked into her blood red eyes and tried not to wretch from the smell of her sour breath.

   He tried to push her off, but all she did was laugh, then wink at him.

   In a flash she was off him, running and jumping off the mountain ridge. Harry didn’t have time to think, he just rolled over, coughing and scrambling to his feet in time to see a Roman soldier slice the head off of a Nazi Rhansyk, then that same soldier drop his sword in shock as a hand went through his chest, pulling out his heart.

   “No!” yelled Harry, scrambling up, and lunging for the second Rhansyk as the soldier disappeared into vapour. The Rhansyk greeted Harry eagerly; he was a short, chubby fellow wearing a black uniform decorated with medals, shining black riding boots, a flat, round hat with a silver band running around the seam, and the armband Neema had described around the left bicep.   He let out a snarl as he ran at Harry; Harry blasted him back, but the Rhansyk just shook it off.

   And pulled out a gun.

   It was a boxy, antique looking thing, but the fear Harry felt tearing down his spine was palatable. He’d never seen a gun in real life; it was ugly and wicked.

   _“Protego!”_ he yelled, throwing up a shield, and two bullets zinged through the air, pinging off his protection spell and ricocheting off into the battle.

   The Rhansyk snarled again, the big stitches that ran down his neck and attached his skin to his shirt and tie pulled taught as his face contorted. He charged at Harry, the gun blazing, and Harry felt the shield shuddering and weakening under the onslaught.

   _“Sectumsempra!”_

   Harry looked over in surprise as Draco came to his rescue, his spell lashing out at the monster. An incredible gash, like the one Alex had received, flew up the Rhansyk’s body, splitting his clothes and spraying red blood out in a fountain. But as Harry watched the Rhansyk spin to a halt, he realised that wasn’t all the spell did. It was as if someone was running a sharp knife along all the big stitches fusing the clothes to the Rhansyk’s skin.

   “Whoa,” stammered Harry as it wailed and fell apart, disintegrating into grisly bits and pieces, falling to the floor in clumps. “Where’d you learn that?

   “Severus,” said Draco, visibly shaken. “Said it was for enemies.”

   They didn’t have time to dwell, as more of the Rhansyk descended upon them. Without pausing, Harry cried out _“Sectumsempra!”,_ mimicking Draco, and the nearest Rhansyk unravelled wailing and thrashing around. Harry felt a bit sick; he’d never used such a violent spell before.

   Draco melted back into the battle and Harry was left to fend for himself again. Seamus and Godric were standing over Alex, passed out by the large tree, Sir Woofsalot barking his head off from his master’s lap. Seamus was firing out all manner of spells, but Godric’s work with his sword was breathtaking, like it weighed nothing at all and the Rhansyk were made of no more than paper.

   Draco had made his way back over to Hermione and they were now standing together, blasting back anyone that came near them. But Harry could see Hermione was drifting towards the cliff’s edge, her focus on her aim and not her feet. He did his best to move towards her, but the Rhansyk were keeping him busy. “Hermione be careful!” he called out, and she nodded, seeing how close she was to the edge.

   Cassius was shouting orders at his men who were taking down the monsters with efficient swings of their swords, and Neema was darting between them all, her scythe bloody once again and her wand clamped in her teeth.

   Harry steadied his breathing and aimed Draco’s slicing curse at two more Rhansyk, who wailed and vanished just like the others had. They were pure evil, he told himself, not even really alive, just walking malice. He shouldn’t feel bad about stopping them with such a visceral spell.

   Their numbers were diminishing, and one by one the Rhansyk started to run for the trees. “Yeah you better run!” hooted Seamus after them, sending a shower of red sparks after them to help the on their way. Draco defeated the last of his adversaries, and spun around to locate Hermione.

   _“NO!”_ was all he had time to yell, reaching out his hand and stumbling forward as Harry turned, his heart in his mouth. Jack the Ripper had jumped from the tree line, knife in hand, aiming for Hermione’s side. She screamed in terror as the blade jammed into her skin, but Neema was already yanking the monster off of her, a guttural, manic noise rising from her throat. She and Jack tumbled to the floor, writhing limbs and a blur of fabric and skin. Neema slammed her own blade into his chest, but Jack just laughed, like the woman on Harry had done, before pulling the scythe out and stabbing both it and his own knife into Neema’s flesh.

   _“Neema!”_ bellowed Godric, who had already been running to her side, but it was no good. She gasped once, twice, then faded into smoke, blowing away in the breeze.

   Harry felt all the air leave his lungs as Godric charged at the demon, but Jack just smiled at Harry, and winked, before jumping off the cliff, just like the black woman.

   “Hermione?” uttered Draco, cradling Hermione as her blood soaked through both of their clothes. Her hand pawed at his chest, a smile twitching at her already snow white face. Seamus skidded down beside them as Harry took one last look at Godric cursing over the edge of the mountain, then ran to his friends.

   Seamus was pressing his hands on Hermione’s wound, trying to stop the bleeding. “We have to get her help, right now.”

   “The...door,” grunted Alex, his eyes not even opening. He had deteriorated fast. He patted a blood stained hand on the large tree.

   “We need to get back to camp,” shouted Ric, already striding to the door. “Tell the girl to stay focused, it’s mind over matter if she wants to live.”

   “You hear that?” said Draco panicky, brushing her damp hair from her forehead. “Stay with me Hermione, you’ll be fine, just concentrate.”

She nodded. “No problem,” she whispered, before jerking in pain.

   Draco slid his arms under her and lifted her as he stood, hugging her to his body as Seamus kept both his hands on her wound. Harry ran to the door and helped Godric heave it open to once again reveal Alex’s entrance hall, but as he went to step through, Alex grabbed his ankle, making him jump.

   “No,” he muttered, his eyes fluttering open.

   “What Alex?” asked Godric as Cassius and what was left of his men jogged inside. “Should we go different way.”

   “Harry,” he breathed, then looked up as Draco and Hermione approached. “Draco...stay.”

   “What?” It was Harry’s turn now. “You want us to stay behind?”

   But Alex shook his head. “No,” he said, swallowing, and hoisting himself up as Draco, Hermione and Seamus came to a halt at the threshold. “Not stay – follow.” He lifted a bloody hand and pointed to the mountain ridge, where the two senior Rhansyk had jumped off. “Breadcrumbs.”

   Harry felt a wave of nausea wash over him. “You think they’ll lead us to the Voldemorts?” he said, and Alex nodded and smiled.

   “No,” said Draco. “No I’m not leaving her, we have to go now and get help.”

   “Draco,” said Godric, a warning note in his voice.

   “You’re wasting TIME!” Draco shouted and tried to move into the house but Godric stepped in his way, and someone gave a squeak. It was Hermione.

   “Save...the world,” she panted, touching Draco’s face with her hand. “’llbefine.” She was barely clinging to consciousness and Harry didn’t know what to do. Draco was right, they couldn’t just leave her, but if Alex was saying they had a way to find the Voldemorts...

   “I’ll take her,” said Godric desperately, throwing his sword to the floor with a clatter. “I’ll get her to Merlin as fast as I can. But you and Harry can’t waste this chance, you _have_ to save the Multiverse, otherwise _none_ of this will have mattered.”

   Hermione looked at Draco and Harry could feel his heart breaking as she touched his lips, then turned and tried to reach for Godric, even though the pain it caused her was evident.

   “Okay,” gasped Draco, leaning over and handing her to him. “Okay, but hurry, please.” He managed a swift kiss on her lips and a nod at Godric before the Founder turned and sprinted through Alex’s house. Seamus helped Alex to his feet as Harry’s head swum.

   “Will she be okay?” he asked as Draco ran his hands through his hair, a cry of anguish escaping his mouth. “Will you be okay?”

   Alex looked to be getting worse, but he still managed to take a deep breath and scoff. “I’ve been on stag dos that left me in worse states than this.” But even saying just a sentence meant he sagged on Seamus and the two shared a meaningful look. Harry felt maybe Alex wasn’t being entirely honest about his condition. What did that mean for Hermione?

   “So,” he said instead, aware of Draco kicking a nearby tree. “We just follow those two psychopaths, and then somehow defeat two different Voldemorts, yes?”

   “Yes,” said Seamus and Alex together.

   Alex reached out and seized his wrist tightly, their eyes locking. “We will be back,” he panted as determinedly as he could. “You are not alone.”

   Harry nodded, and Alex let him go.   “Any other advice?”

   Seamus stepped back into the house with Alex still leaning on his shoulder, hooked the sword of Gryffindor with his foot, then slid it over to Harry. “Give that to Draco,” said Seamus as Harry picked up the blade. “Ric said he’d find it useful.”

   Harry wanted to ask more questions, stall for more time, but the front door swung shut, and all that was left was a large tree on a slightly chilly cliff face.

   Draco let out a terrible noise and threw a rather large rock over the side of the mountain edge. “I _told_ her not to come!” he cried, his face wet and pale as he yanked at his hair and hunkered down over his knees. He was shaking violently, so without hesitating Harry dropped the sword and went to him, crouching beside him and tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder.

   “Mate,” he said. “She’s be okay, she tough as anything.”

   “Maybe _your_ Hermione,” Draco spat, standing up so quickly Harry almost toppled. “Mine’s not like that, she’s fragile, she’s – she’s...” He balled up his fists and screwed his eyes shut.

   “She is not going to die,” said Harry firmly, standing and watching Draco carefully. “She may not be as experienced as my Hermione, but she’s just as determined. You didn’t see her produce that Patronus in Germany, she’s strong, don’t you doubt it.”

   Draco still looked miserable though, worry tearing him up. Harry had seen the kissing, the way they’d held hands, but what he was witnessing here was something even more. “You love her,” he said softly. “Don’t you?”

   Draco opened his eyes and stared over the valley. The cliff edge fell away rapidly to reveal a sparse wasteland populated with little more than boulders and the occasional spindly tree. He breathed in and out a couple of times, his temperament calming. “I guess I do,” he said hollowly. He turned to Harry, as if looking for an answer.

   Harry turned and picked up Godric Gryffindor’s sword, holding it out for Draco. He noticed the wand that had been slotted into the central groove was now gone, and he was glad Ric still had a weapon. “I know she’s going to be fine,” said Harry with conviction as Draco looked at the sword’s hilt. “So now we need to do our part and save the whole Multiverse.”

   “Oh, that,” said Draco, shaking his head and taking the sword. He stared at it in interest. “You’ve done that loads haven’t you, it’ll be easy.”

   Harry couldn’t help but laugh, and Draco managed a weak smile.

   “Do you really think she’ll pull through?” he asked. Harry nodded, and Draco huffed out a lungful of air. “Okay,” he said, touching the sword’s blade. “Okay then.”

   “Seamus said Ric wanted you to have that,” said Harry, flicking the sword with his finger so it rung out like a bell. “After how you handled yourself in Germany I’m not surprised.”

   Draco shook his head. “Not worthy,” he muttered, but Harry shrugged.

   “You can only get the sword out of the sorting hat if you’re worthy,” he said. “I doubt Ric would hand it over to anyone less.”

   Draco didn’t look convinced, but Harry didn’t try and press him further, just conjured up a sheath and belt for the sword. It wasn’t as fancy as the one Godric had been wearing, but it did the trick. “Thanks,” said Draco softly, giving the blade one last look before sliding it into the new holder. “So, now what?”

   Harry jerked his head towards the ridge. “They both jumped that way,” he said, referring to the Rhansyk. “And they both winked at me. Alex said we should follow them and they would lead us to the Voldemorts.”

   “But,” said Draco. “If they’re inviting us to follow...doesn’t that mean we’re walking into a trap?”

   Harry sighed, rolling his wand in his hand. “Probably,” he admitted. “They probably know we’re special, and that we’re after them. I’d imagine they want to bring the fight to them, on their terms.”

   Draco looked down at his sword hanging from his hip. “That’s not going to do much good against a killing curse,” he said bleakly, but Harry shook his head.

   “We’ll need a lot more than just spells or physical fighting,” he said, walking towards the cliff side.

   “Like what?” asked Draco.

   “Luck,” said Harry. “More often than not, it all comes down to luck.”

 

***

 

   Harry Potter stumbled out of the fireplace in the grand entrance hall of the Ministry of Magic, hot on the heels of Arthur Weasley. He carried straight on walking, vaguely aware as four more sets of feet thudded down on the shining marble floor behind him.

   “I’m still not sure about this Harry,” hissed Arthur as the group moved away from the long wall of fireplaces, all flickering various shades of violet and lavender flames. There was a series of desks occupied by wizards and witches busily scrawling on parchment that Harry and his friends weaved their way through. None of the workers looked up or even seemed to care about their presence; several more people fell through the purple flamed mantles before Mr Weasley even reached the grand double doors on the opposite facing wall, and they were treated with the same indifference.

   Harry turned and made sure Hermione, Ron, Neville and Luna were all right behind. He knew how easy it was to get side tracked in this place, and he shuddered at the memories of their last visit only a few months ago, and was glad Ginny was not with them this time.

   “Honestly Harry,” continued Arthur, “this could go seriously wrong, have you thought about the consequences?”

   Harry frowned as they passed through the doorway into another large chamber. This one he recognised – there was a massive ugly fountain slap bang in the middle of the floor that was hard to ignore. His stomach curled as he thought of Bellatrix Lestrange darting about, throwing hexes at him and taunting him about Sirius’ death. A smile edged around his lips. What did she know in the end?

“I haven’t really thought about anything else since I got back,” Harry admitted to Ron’s dad as they approached a large mahogany desk. An Indian woman in her late forties was sat behind stacks and stacks of parchment, all neatly piled in what was obviously some kind of system. One of the piles seemed to belch upon their arrival.

   “Yes?” enquired the woman in a strong Punjabi accent as the group neared. The wall behind her was made entirely of hundreds of pigeon holes, each with a name and occupation engraved on a little golden plaque below. Most had letters crammed in, as well as parcels, tea bags, sneak-a-scopes and one even had a parakeet peering out.

   “Nothing but trouble!” it chirped before ducking back into the little hole.

   “Hello Rubina,” said Arthur with a smile, but Harry could see him sweating ever so slightly. Please don’t blow it, he prayed silently. “How’ve you been?”

   The woman Rubina was of a sturdy build, her robes were smart if not a little tight and her golden flowery jewellery all matched down to the last petal. She peered over rectangular glasses then propped her elbow on the desk, displaying a bandaged right hand.   “The kettle keeps exploding,” she said with an entirely straight face. “The post is late again and Jarvis has called in sick. How are you?”

   Harry was sure she didn’t actually want to know how Mr Weasley was. “Right,” he said twisting the broken Muggle watch on his left wrist back and forth. “Sorry about...all that. I was hoping to sign some visitors in?”

   She raised an eyebrow and regarded him, considering. “You’re not scheduled for visitors,” she replied matter-of-factly as an owl swooped down and dropped a letter on one of the piles. Rubina slammed her palms down onto the desk, causing her peppermint tea to slosh dangerously close to the top of her large polka dotted mug. “How many times am I telling you Sook Sook!” she shouted at the retreating bird. “All stationary orders from Animal Transfiguration go directly into the rubbish bin until Charles Royer is learning some manners!”

   “Um...we’re not on the schedule,” declared Arthur, as she picked up the offending letter and flung it the bin by her feet. “It’s all a bit hush-hush, you know that business last summer...with You-Know-Who?” Rubina’s focus returned to the group before her, and she studied them carefully. Inevitably her gaze settled on Harry and the scar peeking out from under his hair.

   “Bicycle pump!” squawked the parakeet.

   “These were the students who were involved?” she asked, her eyes remaining on Harry whilst she pulled open a draw and started rummaging absent-mindedly.

   “Yes, yes,” confirmed Arthur, nodding. “The boys downstairs need to ask them some questions, for the paper work, you know?”

   Rubina pulled out a rather large radish and slammed the drawer shut. “I’m sorry,” she apologised, pushing up her glasses where they’d slipped down her nose and plopped the radish casually into her tea. “I still need some kind of authorisation though.”

   “It’s okay Rubina,” came a deep voice from their right. “They’re with me.” Harry turned and felt relief sweep over him as the imposing figure of Kingsley Shacklebolt came to their rescue.

   “Department of Mysteries asked me to take them down,” he said as he came to a halt by Arthur’s shoulder. He stood far taller than anyone else in the group, his colourful African robes almost as bright as his smile.

   “Nothing is in the diary,” said Rubina crossly as she flicked through the pages of a large red leather bound book. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

   Kingsley looked solemn. “It’s a very delicate matter Ruby,” he said quietly. “I thought it best to keep those involved to a minimum.”

   Rubina slammed her red book shut, unimpressed, and her parakeet squawked “Good riddance!” as Kingsley lead the group away.

   “Good to see you again Kingsley,” whispered Hermione as they headed towards the elevators.

   “I am still not convinced on this plan,” said Kingsley sternly, and Harry felt a flutter of nerves. He kept walking though, hoping sheer stubbornness would get him through.

   “Nor I,” agreed Arthur, mopping his forehead with a hankie. “Harry this is very dangerous.”

   “But it’s been done before,” retorted Harry as they approached the elevators, and Hermione came to his rescue.

   “Yes,” she piped up confidently, pulling some notes out of her bag as Kingsley slapped the call button. “I found the method in ‘Daring Feats’ by Blaine Houroney. It wasn’t exactly the same as what we’re doing, but then I found some theories in back catalogues of some of the Ministry records-”

   “It is still foolhardy,” growled Kingsley, his eyes shifted either side of them as the elevator opened, but Harry darted in first.

   “Level Nine,” he said almost defiantly, and the others had to jump in quick before the doors shut again.

   “It’s okay Mr Shacklebolt,” said Neville earnestly. “We’ve got a plan.”

   “Harry’s going on a journey,” said Luna, twirling her hair as the doors closed.

   “Harry please,” said Arthur. “I only agreed to bring you here so Kingsley could explain the dangers of what you’re doing, and maybe, well, stop you.” He’d gone pink.

   “Dad!” Ron admonished, and Harry couldn’t help but agree. He thought when Mr Weasley had come to Hogwarts they’d convinced him of their plan. Well, Harry’s plan. He knew most of them had their doubts. Except Luna; she thought it was all marvellous as usual.

   “Sirius was there,” said Harry, his voice catching. “He’s lost in Limbo, he can’t get to wherever it is he should be, he’s trapped. And it’s my fault.” He turned to the adults staring at him. “Don’t you see? I can’t leave him there. If he was dead...well I was starting to accept that.” He said flatly, and Hermione squeezed his hand. “But there? Lost, abandoned? That Librarian said it wasn’t usually anything at all, just nothingness or something. I can’t leave him, I’m bringing him back.”

   Ron folded his arms and raised his eyebrows at his dad. Harry was so grateful of his friends’ unwavering support, even though there was a part of him that knew how stupid he was being. Voluntarily going through the veil scared him silly, but the guilt and anger he felt over Sirius was stronger. This was all the family he had left, he had to go after him.

   “And people have come back,” said Hermione, still defending Harry to the scowling Kingsley. She scoured her notes. “Augustus Verne in 1913, and Jeremy Pinkleton in 1984-”

“Jezza?” cried Kingsley incredulously.   “He returned two months later, with no memory of what had transpired, and thereon after would fall unconscious anytime anyone said the words ‘carrot’, ‘monsoon’ or ‘robot’.”

   “But he _came back,”_ said Hermione deliberately, tapping her notes. “And he was just an accountant from the Transport Office that caved in to a drunken bet. Harry’s a little more battle hardened wouldn’t you say?”

   The lift stopped with a ping on the fifth floor, and everyone snapped their mouths shut and took a step backwards. A tall man in a scarlet top hat entered, a snow white ermine perched on his shoulders. They both eyed the students, Kingsley and Arthur up and down, before the man drawled out “Level Seven” and stroked the ermine lazily. It turned its red eyes on Harry and squinted, like it knew what he was up too. Harry swallowed, and held his breath until both man and pet stepped out at Level Seven.

   “Battle hardened,” pressed Arthur. “Is not going to prepare you for what’s behind that veil,” he said stubbornly.

   “But I’ve already _been_ there,” insisted Harry. “So I _do_ know what to expect. And Hermione came up with a way to get me back.”

   She beamed and fished into her bag again, this time pulling out the end of a length of rope. Harry knew there was far more rope coiled in there than her bag could possibly hold, but when he’d asked her about it she’d just winked and told him “it’s bigger on the inside”.

   “We’ve enchanted it so we can tie it round Harry’s waist,” she said. “So when he goes through the veil he’ll still be tethered to this reality. Once he finds Sirius, all he has to do is tug hard three times and we’ll reel him back in.”

   “It was a library,” Harry reminded them as they reached Level Nine. “And everyone was hanging around in the middle. All I’ll have to do is walk in, take Sirius’ hand, then tug. Easy.”

   “Humph,” said Kingsley as the doors opened on Level Nine.

   Arthur shook his head. “Molly’s going to kill me,” he muttered as they stepped out. Harry had to wait for the others to file out before he himself could enter into the brightly lit, though remarkably plain corridor. Immaculate white walls, ceiling and floor led down a couple of dozen feet to an imposing black door. There was an arrow on the wall that pointed away from the door that said ‘Menagerie’, but that wasn’t what they wanted. In front of this door sat a desk, and at this desk sat a young woman. Harry frowned. He was sure that hadn’t been there before.

   “Look,” he whispered, grabbing Kingsley’s wrist. “Please, please help me do this. It’s _Sirius.”_ He let the words hang as Kingsley studied him, then he gave a sigh.

   “Okay,” he said heavily and Harry couldn’t help but grin.

   “Thank you,” he said, then headed hurriedly down the corridor, the others following in his wake.

   She was a dainty little woman behind the desk, with a short blonde bob, dressed entirely in black with a sparkly pink neck scarf. Her desk was scattered with bits of parchment, several photo frames, a teddy bear and one large tea pot. She was half way through a large chocolate bar, engrossed in a magazine, when she realised she had visitors approaching. Her green eyes widened like saucers, and she hastily chucked the magazine, the chocolate, a bottle of nail varnish and what looked like a sketch pad into a drawer, before wiping her mouth and folding her hands in front of her on the pale beech desk. After checking her teeth with her tongue, she smiled and seemed to search for something to say.

   “Yu’alright!” she said brightly in a distinctive Liverpudlian accent. “How um...how can I help you today?”

   “We have an appointment,” said Harry, smiling back and looking expectantly at Kingsley. The older man looked weary, but he fished into his colourful robes none the less.

   “Yes,” he said, handing her a small official looking card. “With one of the Unspeakables, inside the department.”

   Slowly she reached up and took the card. “Y’know,” she said, fingering it tentatively. “We don’t get many people visitin’ down here. And um...you’re not on the schedule.” She looked up and observed the group. Just like Rubina in the entrance hall her eyes fell on Harry. “I always know if someone’s comin’, as we don’t get many people...and I would have definitely remembered, well y’know?”

   “Are you sure we’re not in the diary?” asked Kingsley a little concerned. Harry almost sagged visibly with relief; he could feel Kingsley playing along with their plan. “Could you check again Miss...?”

   “Oh just call me Ellie,” she said, perking up again. “Of course I’ll check furya.” She pulled over a large black book from underneath a couple of photos, which Harry could now see were of a British Bulldog that had surely run into a brick wall its face was so squashed. Its pink tongue lolled about as it panted, and one of the pictures looked up and seemed to smile at Harry. He blinked and returned his focus to Ellie and her book.

   Her little forehead was puckered. “Cor blimey,” she said, pulling at the tendrils on the end of her scarf. “I do apologise, I swear you weren’t in here this mornin’, and Eddie always tells me if there’s changes.” She looked at them. “Eddie’s ma boss,” she explained. “I don’t actually know his name...or his face...but I thought Eddie was a good name for a boss.” Harry guessed she was talking about one of the Unspeakables.

   “Excellent name,” he agreed. “So we’re okay to proceed?” Hermione shot him a warning look and Harry bit his lip. She was right, he should really be letting the men who actually worked at the Ministry to take the lead, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

   Ellie bit her lip and closed the book. “I – I’m not really sure – it’s so bloody strict around here.” She thought a bit. Harry shifted his weight from foot to foot and Hermione smacked him discreetly to stop fidgeting. He was just so anxious not to get stalled when they were so close.

   “Oh – have you got your Ministry passes?” she asked Kingsley and Arthur cheerily, to which they both produced small wallet like pouches and showed her some photo i.d. She swirled her wand over them and beamed. “That’s great! Okay, I guess you can go on through.”

   With a swell of relief Harry smiled at Neville next to him and they all made to squeeze around the desk to the black door.

   “Whoa whoa whoa,” said Ellie, holding her hands up and standing to her feet. “I’m really sorry, but I can’t allow kids through there. It’s _dangerous_ ,” she said in an awed voice to the younger members of the party.

   “Um Ellie, it’s okay,” said Kingsley, taking her gently by the arm and moving her slightly to one side. “They’ve been in before, that’s why they’re back today.”

   She turned and looked at them, taking Harry in particular in again. “You mean, these are the ones...last summer?” Kingsley nodded and her hands flew up to cover her mouth. Harry had to marvel at his quick thinking. “Oh you brave, brave things!” she gasped, clutching her hands to her chest. “Oh that’s just terrible, I can’t imagine – yes, yes go on through.”

   She waved them past the desk with a slightly teary smile. Harry was actually quite touched that someone, a complete stranger to him, recognised what a terrible experience they’d been through.

   “Thanks,” he said to her as Kingsley ushered him through the big black door. Once on the other side it swung shut with a resounding boom that ran through Harry’s bones. Just like before, as soon as the room was sealed the circular wall with the many doors whizzed round at a terrific rate, leaving Harry with the sensation he was in the middle of a spinning top. Gradually the doors eased to a halt, and Harry found himself looking expectantly at Kingsley Shacklebolt. His black eyes were roaming the various entrances, all identical as far as Harry could see.

   “So which one’s the Death Chamber?” asked Ron, scuffing his shoe on the black granite floor.

   “Don’t call it that!” snapped Hermione.

   “That’s what Dumbledore called it,” he replied defensively.

   “Yes,” she said patiently, “but it’s horrid.”

   Luna was drifting around the room, sort of dancing to a tune no doubt only she could hear. Her fingers trailed along the walls and handless doors as she sashayed along. “I think we should call it the Whispering Room,” she said, passing Kingsley who was looking closely at a door on Harry’s right.

   “This one,” he proclaimed before Harry could agree with Luna.

   Everyone congregated around the door. “Are you sure?” asked Ron, peering at the door in question.

   “Absolutely,” assured Kingsley. He looked down at Luna Lovegood. “I can hear the whispering,” he added with a wink.

   “Kingsley,” said Arthur in a warning tone. “Are we really going to go through with this?”

   “No,” said Kingsley, and Harry’s head snapped up. _“I_ am going to go through with this, I will go through the veil.”

   “You can’t!” cried Harry, looking round anxiously at the doors. They couldn’t have much time. “It’s my responsibility!”

   “You are a child, Harry Potter,” said Kingsley forcefully but not without a hint of sympathy. “I cannot let you risk your life like this. I am far more experienced.”

   Had this been his backup plan all along? thought Harry, balling his hands up in frustration. To betray him?

   “That’s not your decision,” he cried. “It’s my fault, I have to fix this!”

   “Um,” said Hermione raising her hand tentatively as if she were in class. Kingsley blinked at her. “I could be wrong,” she said, holding up her hands. “But I think it _has_ to be Harry that goes through.”

   “Thank you,” said Harry, satisfied.

   “Miss Granger, I don’t think you appreciate-”

   “No,” said Hermione hotly, pulling out her notes again. “I don’t think _you_ appreciate. I’ve gone over and over it – don’t you think _I_ thought of volunteering?”

   Harry’s eyebrows shot up at her but he chose to say nothing. Instead he watched her standing up to Kingsley.

   “What is it Hermione?” asked Neville.

   Hermione waved her parchment around. “From what Harry’s said, Limbo only had substance, real form, because he and the other doppelgangers imagined it into being.”

   “Correct,” said Harry, wondering where she was going with this. “Because we were real people, we came up with that Library.”

   “Exactly, _you_ came up with it. It’s not a real place, it’s just something you made feel physical to you because you were there.”

   Harry screwed up his eyes, trying to keep up with her. “Yeah, so?”

   “Well, you’ll be linked to it, won’t you?” said Hermione, as if it were obvious. “You’ll step through that veil and you’ll propel yourself back there, like a homing beacon.” She shrugged and indicated the group standing by the door. “Who knows where any of us would end up – we’d probably just create a new library, or get lost in the ether.”

   That actually made sense to Harry, and he smiled warmly at his friend for coming to the rescue. Kingsley and Arthur shared a remorseful look.

   “So, it’s Harry or no one?” clarified Ron.

   Hermione nodded. “As far as I can see, it really would be more dangerous to let anybody else attempt it.”

   Harry glanced apprehensively at the adults, but they both seemed resigned. Kingsley bowed his head. “If it is your wish,” he said sombrely. “I will not stand in your way.”

   “Oh blimey!” came a voice behind them, and Harry jumped in surprise. Ellie the receptionist was hanging through one of the doors. “Oh good,” she said, her hand on her chest, shaking her head. “I told him you would have gone through by now, but good, you’re here.”

   “Told who?” said Kingsley, straightening up.

   Ellie jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Eddie,” she said cheerily. “He was ever so upset.”

   Three figures robed in midnight blue appeared behind the little lady, wands held up ready. Unspeakables.

   Kingsley didn’t give them a chance. “GO!” he bellowed, throwing up a defensive shield as Arthur Weasley fired something explosive at the Ministry personnel. Ellie shrieked but Harry didn’t falter, he seized the door handle Kingsley had said would take them through to the Death Chamber, and yanked it open.

   He ran into the large square amphitheatre, descending the steps to the centre quickly. The arch stood proudly on the slightly raised plinth in the middle of the room, and the black tattered veil hung from it as before. It fluttered lightly, even though there was no breeze.

   There was a slam as Ron and Neville forced the door shut behind them, leaving the two adults in the spinning top room. Hermione covered the door with as many locking spells as she could, and then they along with Luna ran down to join Harry.

   “Now what?” breathed Ron as the dull sound of explosions went off behind the door. Harry shut them out and focus on the veil.

   “The rope,” he said, turning to Hermione. She gave a curt nod as she flipped her bag open again and began uncoiling their enchanted rope.

   “How long will it take?” asked Neville, glancing anxiously back at the entrance at the top of the amphitheatre.

   “Not long,” said Hermione tersely as she tied a complicated knot. “But I need to concentrate, and that’s not helping.” She jerked her head back at the door and the muffled noises coming from behind it.

   Luna crept up towards the curtain and leant her ear in. “Careful Luna,” said Neville anxiously and she smiled. She stayed there another minute or so.

   “I think someone’s having sausages,” she said inexplicably, then floated back down to the group again.

   “That should do it,” said Hermione in a small voice, and she stepped back, giving the rope a good yank.

   Harry knew he didn’t have any time. “Thank you,” he said to his friends, edging towards the ominous looking veil. Sirius was behind there, that’s all that mattered. “Thank you so much.”

   “Good luck,” said Ron, his face white.

   “Come back safe,” said Hermione, feeding the rope from her bag as Harry moved away from her.

   “Don’t be too long,” said Neville, attempting to smile. “Those guys are going to be pretty mad.”

   Harry managed a small laugh, more nerves than humour and he turned and felt for the veil. The material was think under his fingers, and it pulled away from him, the breeze strong.

   There was nothing but utter blackness beyond it.

   “Beware of the whispers,” said Luna softly.

   Harry blew out, the banging on the door and explosions of magic ringing in his ears. He really could smell sausages, he thought as he stepped forward, parting the curtain, and walking into the unknown.

 

***

 

   The shrill voice was getting stronger as Ron sprinted with his three American companions into the next chamber. He wished fleetingly this room had a door too that could be slammed shut, but it didn’t. As the voice flailed around for whatever melody it was attempting to grasp, Ron grabbed one of the brooms in the corner of the room and squinted up at the array of winged keys currently circling their heads.

   “Hey, whatta you doin’?” Abbey snapped at Chris, who was guiltily holding a broom of his own.

   “We have to find the right key, don’t we?” he countered, but she shook her head and swiped the Nimbus off him, as if scolding a small child.

   “I am all for Muggle rights and anti-prejudice stuff, but I’m sorry there ain’t no way you’re flyin’ that broom.”

   “Why not?” demanded A.J., squaring up to her.

   “Because you physically can’t,” said Ron. They didn’t have time for this. “The broom has to be powered by your own magic, it’s not something magic that anyone can jump on.”

   “Y’all need to help us look from the ground, we’ll scatter them from above.” Abbey swung her leg over her broom and kicked off, Ron followed right behind her.

   “What happens if that person gets through and they’re not nice!” cried Chris from below. “We’re helpless!”

   “We need to hurry up then!” shouted Ron back down at them. He was right, they were completely defenceless and cold guilty feeling slid down his insides. They had to be quick – what would Harry do? What would Hermione do?

   “Look at the lock,” he called down. “What does it look like, the key should match.” A.J. and Chris ran over and inspected the door.

   “Wrought iron, dark grey,” A.J. called back up. “Ornate, heavily decorated, big.” Ron looked frantically around; there was just so many of them! Their wings were all different shapes and sizes too and they largely obscured the metal hidden underneath. Ron and Abbey scooted through a flurry of colours, darting their heads about.

   “Dagnabbit,” said Abbey through gritted teeth. She was gripping the broom so hard her knuckles had gone completely white. “I only ever stay on the ground, stupid broomstick, stupid keys.”

   Ron ignored her. “Big, grey, fancy,” he muttered to himself over and over, hardly daring to blink. Big but gold, grey but modern, ornate but little. “C’mon, c’mon.”

   “There!” screamed Chris. “The one with the big purple wings!” He was pointing into the corner of the room on the left hand side above the locked door. Ron swerved to find the key he was talking about but Abbey was already racing over. The keys scattered and bashed into his face with their colourful wings, but Ron only had eyes for purple.

   “Above you!” yelled Abbey, and before he could think Ron yanked the broom to a halt, reached with his right hand and snatched into the air. There was whoops and cheers as he brought his prize back down to his eye level, and saw struggling under his fingers was a large, ornamented, iron key.

   The cheer was literally in his throat, but it was stolen from him before he could release it.

   “Give me the key,” a woman’s voice commanded from the ground. It took Ron a moment to realise she was English. He looked down and his stomach plummeted. She wore a black, long sleeved dress, heavy looking and embroidered with hundreds of beads glinting like tiny black beetles. Her hair was a mess of black curls, her smile was cruel, and her gaze followed the direction of her wand from beneath black shadowed eyes. Ron gulped and recognized the wand was definitely pointed at him.

   “Or what?” demanded Abbey, who had whipped out her own wand and dropped several feet to get closer to the ground.

   “Or I kill you all,” replied the woman, almost comically. Something surfaced in Ron’s mind, an old wanted poster, images from the Daily Prophet.

   “You’re Bellatrix Lestrange,” he said numbly. A Death Eater. The one who tortured the Longbottoms into insanity amongst others. One of You-Know-Who’s most loyal.

   “Yes,” said Bellatrix patronisingly. “Who else could have gained control of this so-called school so easily?” She gave a lop-sided grin that came across more like a snarl. “I see you were quite horrid to poor old Rodriguez.”

   “Why are you doing this?” Ron asked, edging his broom closer to the ground and closer to his helpless friends. How soon before she realised they were lowly Muggles? She’d kill them instantly.

   “My Master needs what’s behind these tricks and traps, I’m the only one he could trust to retrieve it,” she told him smugly. “And you can stop right there thank you very much, I don’t think you should be any closer to the floor than that.” Ron shuddered, his mind racing. She had the upper hand as long as her wand was on him.

   “What happens if we give you the damn key?” asked Abbey, her wand still steady, her other hand trembling from effort on the broom. Bellatrix shrugged.

   “You can go, I have no use for you.”

   “Liar.” A.J.’s voice was hoarse as he spoke up. Ron wanted to shout at him to stop, don’t draw any attention to themselves. But it was too late. “Why should we give you the key when you’re going to kill us anyway?” He stepped towards the traitorous witch, slowly, thoughtfully. His shoulders were tensed like a cat about to pounce.

   She blinked. “You know you’re absolutely right, I might as well just kill you now and have done with it.”

   Her wand arched down to point at A.J., and a jolt of panic shot through Ron. “No, wait!” he cried, almost losing his balance on the broom. The key-free hand dove into his pocket and by the time Bellatrix looked up again he’d dropped four feet and had his wand pointed straight at the key. “I’ll melt it! I will!”

   Bellatrix scowled. “You wouldn’t even know how to do that you little English Squib,” she snarled. “Only pure children have been educated, you couldn’t even make a spark.”

   “Oh yeah?” said Ron, a lot more confident than he felt. “You obviously have no idea who I am.” The warmth spread through his fingers. Bellatrix screamed, sensing the spell, and moved to blast him. But Abigail was the quickest of them all.

   “ _Expelliarmus!”_ she yelled at the top of her lungs, blasting Bellatrix back, and sending her wand cascading right in front of where A.J. had walked to. In a blur of movement Bellatrix scrambled frantically to her feet as A.J. scooped up her precious wand and moved quickly backwards, the wand pointed at Bellatrix even though he could do nothing with it. At least she didn’t know that.

   Chris tore on past him and body-slammed the older witch to the ground. With an unearthly screech Abbey flew to meet them, tossed her broom aside, then seized two great handfuls of curly black hair. Ron sped down to the ground away from the kerfuffle and slammed the key into the door. It fit perfectly, although the left hand wing gave a sickening crack as he wrenched the door open.

“GO!” he shouted at A.J. who stood unsure at the threshold. He didn’t wait to see if he did as he was told, instead he spun around and fired his own spell at the three wrestling figures in the middle of the room. They blasted apart in a purple shower, but as if in slow motion, Ron saw what Bellatrix was clutching in her hand. It was Abbey’s wand.

   “ _Confringo!”_ she screamed triumphantly, and Ron only just dived out the way in time as the wall behind exploded spectacularly into flames. Luckily A.J. had already darted through to the other side.

   “MOVE IT!” he roared to Chris and Abbey as the bricks trembled and several came loose entirely, crashing to the ground.

   “ _Expulso_ ,” Ron cried, waving his wand wildly over his head as he, Abbey and Chris sprinted for the door. Several more chunks of stone came tumbling down where his spell hit, causing Bellatrix to dive out of the way, shrieking.

   The wall ahead cracked impressively behind the flames, and Ron put all the power into his legs. He groped at the door as he reached it, fumbling for the purple winged key. His fingers hauled it out as Abbey streaked past. He and Chris pushed through the doorframe as he pulled the wooden door behind them, the wall collapsing in fiery pieces around them. He ducked as one final green spell shot past the rubble and flames, just inching through the door as it closed. He heard Bellatrix’s screams of fury as the door slammed shut, and he turned the key once more. He and Abbey fired every possible locking spell they had at it for extra protection.

   He gasped for air and tried to calm his heartbeat. The knowledge that the other side of the entrance was in all likely hood completely blocked by boulders made Ron sigh as he rested his head on the wood. The wall on their side of the door was wholly intact, suggesting that maybe the two rooms weren’t even physically next to each other anyway.

   Ron kept his head on the door until he realised something was wrong. Maybe it was the air around Abbey as she suddenly stiffened, or the total silence after so much noise. But slowly, without really wanting to, Ron lifted his head up, opened his eyes, and turned around.

   Abbey had turned before him and was now completely motionless. A.J. had leant on the right hand wall and slid down to the ground, his eyes wide, his jaw clutched like it might snap. Their eyes were both fixed on the same point on the floor, unwavering.

   For there, unnatural and unmoving, lay the prone body of Chris; his limbs twisted, his eyes blank, and his clothes still smoking ever so slightly green from the Avada Kedavra curse that had just snatched away his life.


	9. Farewell To The Fairground (Part One)

Chapter Six – Part One

   Farewell To The Fairground

 

The light still in our eyes

We're leaving this old fairground behind

It's a dream that's growing cold

The circus never dies

The act forever haunts these skies

I know we cannot stay

 

Farewell to the fairground

These rides aren’t working anymore

Goodbye to this dead town

Until the ice begins to thaw

 

Keep on running

K-Keep on running

There’s no place like home

There’s no place like home

 

   White Lies

 

   Harry Potter shook his head and blinked. What on Earth had happened? He was standing in a field, surrounded by various coloured tents and dozens of eclectic looking people sprinting around him. He was assaulted by an onslaught of noises; people shouting and screaming, metal clanging, machines whirling. Though Harry couldn’t place where most of the commotion was coming from because all he could see were tents, it seemed close.

   There was a fresh breeze ruffling the grass and the sky looked bright but stormy with the clouds hurrying on by. Where was the library? Where was Hermione with the straight hair or the strange Librarian with all the answers?

   A black cloud of smoke went flying overhead, and Harry instinctively ducked. Several people were charging after it, firing spells of all kinds that made the cloud jerk and twitch as if it were alive.

   Harry felt a sliver of fear run down his spine. Why couldn’t he help but feel he’d walked into some kind of battle? What had happened since he’d been gone? Was this even Limbo, or was it...? He blanched, taking a deep breath. Could this possibly be another reality, like where that other Harry had come from?

   He shook his head and did his best to dismiss that thought. This place was manic, absolutely chaotic. Even just from the small group of people he’d seen he could tell they were from all seven continents, and from completely different time frames. The Librarian had said that people who had disappeared most recently from their worlds would re-materialise first. After that, Harry figured it didn’t matter how long ago people landed in Limbo, they would eventually appear here, and that would explain why everybody’s clothes looked like something from a museum. No, this was definitely Limbo.

   Reassured, he felt around his waist to check that the rope Hermione had attached was still very much there, although now he couldn’t see it. If he ran his hand from his waist out he could feel it taut, but if he let go and waved his hand where he knew the rope was, he felt nothing. At least that side of things had gone to plan.

   How on Earth was he going to find Sirius? He had thought the appearance of Limbo might have altered slightly in the time he was gone, but this was far more drastic than he’d feared. Who were all these people, were they all half-lives? And why were they in this frenzied state, was there some kind of ruckus going on?

   He picked a spot between the nearest tents and walked through. He was in a sort of corridor of tents, all of varying sizes and contents, some huge with production lines of swords and shields, others very small with huddles of witches around bubbling cauldrons. He looked left and he looked right, a hint of panic rising in his chest. He had absolutely no idea where to start, but after taking a few steadying breaths he just decided to take his chances and go left. Walking in any direction would surely increase his chances of finding his godfather rather than just standing still and waiting for him to appear.

   He gripped his wand and looked about. Young boys of every creed were working together filling pails of water from a well, sloshing it over the sides of the buckets in their race to move on to the next one. A remarkably well behaved giant was waiting with his hands out, and the boys looped the bucket handles on to each finger as they filled them. Once the giant had two on each digit Harry watched him amble off, and the boys slumped against the well’s stonework, panting.

   Some of the tent insides he passed were very modern, more like factories or offices, but they still looked medieval on the outside. Japanese samurai stood alongside Tudor soldiers and Arabian mystics, but the strange thing was they all seemed to be getting along just fine.

   A loud explosion made Harry jump and slip into a muddy puddle. He closed his eyes, balled up his fists and tried not to cry out in frustration. He didn’t understand what this crazy place was or how he could hope to start looking for Sirius. He didn’t know if there was a time limit on how long the enchanted rope would last, or even how long this particular version of Limbo would last. What if reality changed around him? Would the rope still pull them back?

   “Harry?” cried out a voice with a thick London accent in confusion, and Harry opened his eyes to see a knight in red and gold livery running towards him. “Harry what are you doing, I thought we left you with Draco up the mountain?”

   Harry blinked as the man skidded to a halt and grabbed his hand to yank him from the mud. Draco? he thought. Was this guy talking about the version of Malfoy Harry had met in the Library, the one from another world?

   “Er, do I know you?” he asked, but the knight, who was very tall indeed, suddenly grabbed Harry’s arm and the two of them dove into the nearest tent. It was a sort of armoury, with stacks of steal swords lined up and piles of shields all over the floor.

   “Sorry,” said the tall man with a wave of his hand, and Harry turned to see a little troll looking unimpressed with his hammer suspended above a glowing axe head. The man pressed Harry and himself away from the tent’s entrance. “You might want to duck,” warned the knight.

   Harry wanted to ask why, but the troll just did as he was told. It was lucky, because at that moment a terrible roar sounded through the air, and Harry saw what he thought had to be a huge black dragon with a golden belly swoop down the line of tents, several witches and wizards chasing after it on broomsticks.

   “What the _Hell_ is going on?” breathed Harry.

   The man looked him up and down. “You’re not the same Harry are you?” he said with a sigh. “Of course you’re not, because that would be simple.”

   Harry wasn’t sure why a knight would have an East End accent, but it was unnerving. He raised his eyebrows. “I guess not,” he said. “Because I don’t know who you are. Is there a different Harry here?”

   “Yes,” said the knight, peering out of the tent, then obviously deciding it was safe as he walked out with a salute to the troll. “And you can call me Ric.”

   “Is this still Limbo?” Harry asked the man called Ric, following him outside again, careful not to step on any scorched earth from the dragon chase.

“Yes,” said Ric, distracted and looking around, his wand in his hand.

   “But it looked like a Library before,” pressed Harry, determined to get some more information.

   Ric’s head swung round, his full attention suddenly on Harry. “Oh you’re _that_ Harry Potter,” he said. “The one my Harry took the place of.”

   “Your Harry?” repeated Harry, but Ric was already striding off, so Harry and to jog to keep up with him.

   “From my world,” said Ric, scanning the tents as they walked past them. “The one we left with Draco – no, _not_ like that, they’ll never do!” He marched into a candy striped tent which turned out to be an office board room on the inside. Harry peered after the knight to see him take a marker pen off of an Edwardian gentleman and alter the diagram he had been drawing on a white board for a motley collection of coal miners and US marines.

   Harry felt a wave of frustration roll over him. He didn’t have time for this, he needed to find Sirius as soon as possible. “Look,” he said, as Ric strode out again shaking his head, but the knight held up and finger to silence him and pulled out his wand.

   _“Expecto Patronum,”_ he said, and a huge silvery shape exploded from the tip of his wand. Harry jumped back as a magnificent lion took shape, scuffing its paws and swishing its tail. “Find Cassius,” said Ric to his Patronus. “I need a full report, he’s been quite for too long.”

   The lion roared, making Harry jump backwards, then tore off through the tents. “I’m sorry,” said Harry, losing his rag a little. “But just what the Hell is going on here, where did the library go, why does this place feel like a battle ground, and _where_ did my godfather go?”

   Ric cast cold eyes onto him. “The other Harry has a better temper than you.”

   “I don’t CARE!” Harry yelled, earning a few wayward stares. He clenched his fists and did his best to ignore how much taller the other man was than him. “I broke into the Ministry, I forced my way back here – if you knew I was here before did you know I was with a man, Sirius Black? Do you know where he is?”

   Ric turned on his heels and began marching off again.

   “Hey!” yelled Harry.

   “Do you want to find Sirius or not?” Ric barked, and Harry instantly felt his agitation quell.

   “So you do know him?” he said meekly.

   Ric swept through a gaggle of sailors, peasant folk and regular, modern-looking wizards. “I can point you in the right direction, that’s it,” he said sternly. “I’m just a little busy at the moment.”

   Harry’s eyes scanned the carnage they were hurrying through. “You’re fighting someone?”

   “Yes,” said Ric grimly. “Okay, you need to find the big red top, can’t miss it, it’s massive. From there you’re on your own.”

   “And that’s where Sirius is?” clarified Harry.

   Ric didn’t even bother answering, his attention had been snapped elsewhere. Harry just decided that’s what he had meant. Ric shook his head. “Only an idiot would come back here,” he growled softly, and Harry wasn’t sure he was talking to him or himself.

   “So,” said Harry, sensing he was losing Ric. “The big top is near here?”

   “Yes,” said Ric, waving his hand towards their left. “I don’t get what you’re trying to achieve though.”

   “I’m going to get us both home,” said Harry proudly. Now this did catch Ric’s attention.

   “You’re going to take him out of Limbo?” he said slowly. Something about his expression gave Harry a chill, but he stood strong.

   “Yes,” he said with conviction. “I’ve got a plan.”

   Ric raised an eyebrow. “Good luck with that,” he said flatly.

   A black teenage girl suddenly came sprinting towards them at an astonishing rate. She had a wiry, muscular frame and was dressed in little more than a sack. “Mas’er Gryffindor Sir!” she cried, barely out of breath as she stumbled to a halt in front of them, ignoring Harry. He looked at Ric. Gryffindor?

   “Yes love?” he said pragmatically.

   “Mis’er Cassius,” she said, her accent a strong, lilting American one, but Harry wasn’t sure which region. “He say he need help Sir, he say they be Fixer folk and he need magics Sir.”

   Ric, or Gryffindor as the messenger had called him, didn’t even pause, he just twisted on the spot and apparated away. Harry and the girl blinked at the spot where he’d been standing.

   “Hey,” said Harry as she turned to leave. “You wouldn’t happen to know where the big red top tent is?”

   The girl broke into a smile that illuminated her dark skin. “Why yessir,” she said with a little bow. “Why if the Mas’er can keep up, I’sa show him myself.”

   Harry smiled back, despite the chaos that was raining down around him. “I can keep up,” he said.

 

***

 

   Sarah stared listlessly at her Snickers bar. It was very unusual that she found chocolate couldn’t fix her mood, but obviously she’d not experienced a zombie apocalypse on top of the imminent end of all creation before. Perhaps she needed some Ferrero Rocher to tackle that one.

   She was sat on the floor of the corner shop Hermione had steered them into, a zombie woman banging on the door they’d trapped her behind and a picnic of chocolate, sweets, crisps and fizzy drinks littering the floor around them. Hermione had protested at stealing; Terry had patiently explained that jelly babies were essentially going to be the saviour of the universe. Once they were in his belly.

   “So...” said Terry, a Hula Hoop on each finger. He studied his work, then crunched off the one on his thumb. “All the realities ever created are going to unravel, unless Ziggy and Malfoy can stop the You-Know-Whos from our two worlds...in Limbo?”

   Sarah shrugged, gave up on her chocolate bar and swigged some lemonade. “I know it’s nuts,” she said. “But after everything else, it doesn’t seem like it’s that impossible.”

   Hermione was rubbing her head, and she let out a little groan. They were all still fairly damp and uncomfortable after getting drenched outside. Hermione had tried to instruct her and Terry on the correct spell to siphon off the water, but Terry had only been able to partially do it, much to her annoyance. Sarah felt sorry Hermione had lost her wand, but even more guilty she was so useless with her own. What kind of a witch was she if she couldn’t even perform basic magic?

   She felt a flash of anger towards her parents for not making her study harder, and the school for closing in the first place, then felt terribly ashamed of herself for being so selfish. She would be lucky if her parents got out of this alive, so what is she was struggling with a couple of charms?

   “Okay,” said Hermione, raising her face and dropping her hands. She looked extraordinarily pale, even in the minimal light they were sitting in. “No, I get that, I get why the You-Know-Whos could travel to Limbo and to a certain extent what power Harry and Draco hold over them. I get the Watcher and what Limbo is, and that if it’s drawn into chaos by the two You-Know-Whos everything will unravel. I even get the Horcrux stuff, it makes sense, but here’s what I need to know.” She inhaled slowly. “A Horcrux came with me, yes?”

   Sarah nodded. “Alex said it would attach itself to an object you were near.”

   “Right,” agreed Hermione. “But, what do we do with it? Do I take it back with me, do I hand it over to your Ministry?”

Sarah swirled the last of her drink around in its can. “No idea,” she admitted. “Alex didn’t explain about that, there was so much else going on, but I guess destroying it couldn’t hurt.”

   “If we ever work out what object it went into,” snorted Terry. “You were in the Library, it could have latched onto a hundred things.”

   Hermione gave a sad smile. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll deal with that later then, once we’ve got past our most pressing concern.”

   “Which would be that my home town’s been zombified and no one can get out,” said Sarah bitterly.

“Point to the pretty lady with the nose stud,” said Terry, but Sarah scowled at him. She wasn’t really in the mood for joking. The curse might only be temporary, but until the spell was broken her whole family would remain monsters, and the thought curdled in her stomach. Who would do this, and why?

   She ran her tongue bar across her teeth. “Do we think they’re linked?”

   “What?” asked Terry.

   Sarah drained her can and placed it by her thigh. “This,” she said, looking around. “The curse on the town, and the whole Limbo, reality crossing situation.”

   “Yes,” said Hermione darkly. “I’m certain of it, from everything we’ve seen and that Harry and Draco have described, all these crazy coincidences are linked.” She began pulling at the laces on Terry’s trainers. “It’s like someone’s got an inter-dimensional weather vane.”

   Terry shook his head. “How would making a little town into a horror movie help – I don’t know, say – You-Know-Who take over Limbo?”

   Hermione shrugged, taking off the shoe and starting on the next one. “Absolutely no clue,” she admitted. “I’m just saying there probably is some sort of crazy link. If we could work it out, it would go a long way to helping us.”

   Terry scowled. “There must be _some_ way to get help, something we haven’t thought of.”

   “And sometimes,” said Hermione, scooping up the trainers and plonking them in front of Terry. “You just have to deal with things yourself.”

   “Oh no,” said Terry. “Those were a gift, for your poor bleeding feet, remember?”

   Hermione arched an eyebrow. “What about your poor, bleeding feet?”

   “Me man,” said Terry in a mock growl. “Me no need shoes.”

   “Er,” said Sarah, all of her muscles suddenly tensing. “Whoever’s going to put them on, should do it now.” They turned to look where she was looking.

   A zombie policeman was walking repeatedly into the front door, and he was earning more attention from his fellows.

   “Time to leave!” cried Terry, launching to his feet and heading to the door where they’d trapped the woman zombie. Hermione seemed like she was going to shout at him, changed her mind and snatched up the trainers. Sarah glanced at the shop front as they rushed to the back, watching as several more zombies began pawing at the glass. It could only be a matter of time before the windows broke.

   “They don’t want to eat us do they?” she asked as Hermione grabbed her mop again.

   “Of course not,” she said.

   “Then why are they after us at all?” Sarah countered.

   Hermione looked frustrated as she shoved her feet back into Terry’s trainers. “Because they want to add us to their hive mind, it’s their only instinct – Terry, get the door.”

   Terry nodded at her, then yanked the handle, swinging the door open.

   The Indian woman was looking forlorn on the other side, her white eyes half closed and her arms by her side. But as soon as she caught sight of them she moaned loudly and shuffled towards them, hands groping like flailing fish out of water.

   “Come on,” coaxed Hermione like she might a child. “Come over here nice zombie lady.” She brandished the mop as the woman stumbled out of the corridor and into the shop. Sarah jumped at the sound of breaking glass and whipped around to see the door was giving way.

   “Hurry,” she breathed.

   “GO!” cried Hermione, as the Indian woman stepped out through the door and Hermione slammed the wet end of the mop onto her chest, forcing her to tumble backwards towards the cans of dog food and cat treats.

   Sarah and Terry bolted towards the corridor as the zombies at the front shoved their way noisily through the windows and door. Hermione discarded her impromptu weapon and joined them, slamming the door in her wake. Terry began firing locking and protection spells on it without her even prompting. Sarah was quite proud to add her own little _“Duro”_ charm to harden up the wood, and it seemed to work just fine.

   “Let’s go,” said Terry once he was done. Sarah was hot on his heels, but Hermione leant over to inspect their work.

   “No time!” cried Sarah, grabbing her arm. Hermione scoffed in disapproval, but she let herself be dragged up to a door that, judging from the water trickling through the seams, led outside again.   “Oh great,” grumbled Sarah.

   Terry didn’t pause though, he just seized the handle and flung the door outwards into the pouring rain. “Where to!” he hissed, diving out into the deluge, and Sarah realised with dismay he was talking to her. Just because it was her home town did not mean she had any idea which direction they should head, they had no plan to speak of.

   “I don’t know,” she said defensively as they ploughed out into the sodden evening. “Maybe we should find more cover, then decide what to do?”

   “So lead us to more cover!” cried Terry. They were sprinting down a back alleyway, and Sarah wasn’t sure of her bearings. She almost didn’t see an abandoned bike lying across the path until it was too late, but she managed to soar over it with only a small flail of her arms. She chose to ignore Terry until she knew where they actually were, so darted ahead of him in order to reach the alley’s end first.

   She slowed as she reached the opening onto the larger street, putting her hands out to steady herself on the brickwork and wooden fence on either side of the little path. Trees hung over from the garden behind the fence, blocking out the last of the twilight. Sarah’s heart thumped as she edged forward, peering around the corner to see where they were and if they had any company.

   Sadly, she was not that surprised to see several cursed people shambling around the little cul-de-sac they were on the verge of entering, but thankfully she also recognised the area and knew there was another alleyway on the other side of the street that could lead them to relative safety.

   “We need,” she hissed. “To get across.”

   “Okay,” said Terry, exasperated. “Then go!”

   Sarah found her grip tightening on the fence and brick work. “They’ll see us,” she breathed, ashamed of her own cowardliness. It wasn’t that she was frightened of the cursed people themselves, she reasoned with herself. It was what they _represented._ If they got anywhere near them, they would suck out everything that made them who they were, everything that was motivating them towards an outside world that could get help, restore everyone to their plodding, magic-free, mundane lives.

   “What are you waiting for?” rasped Terry, checking over his shoulder.

   Sarah shrugged. “Shouldn’t we distract them,” she said anxiously. “Throw a stone at least?”

   “Oh,” said Terry. “Right.” He stooped over in the rain and padded around as Sarah watched. After a moment or two he stood up straight with a buckled fizzy drinks can, squinted though the deluge, and pitched it with all the muscle he had.

   It soared through the air and bounced into someone’s front garden. Sarah felt bad as the cursed folk began shambling clumsily towards it, trampling over flower beds and knocking over bird baths and plastic gnomes. She hoped the homeowners would forgive them for wrecking their landscaping once they’d made them real people again.

   “Where are we headed?” asked Hermione, shivering violently in the cold rain. Sarah pointed over to where she could just make the alleyway on the other side of the road. Once the zombies had shuffled a safe distance over to the can, Sarah held a finger up to her lips, and slipped out into the rain.

   The three of them darted over the road, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. If any of the zombies spotted them, Sarah didn’t know about it. She just sprinted down the alley, her eyes on the exit thirty feet away.

   A form suddenly swung from between the fence panels, and Sarah couldn’t help but scream. A girl, only a few years younger than her, staggered out from a door set in the panelling. She was dressed in pyjamas covered with cartoon cupcakes and had her hair in braids. Her bare feet scraped on the concrete floor as the door from what was probably her garden banged all the way back, making even more noise.

   Sarah spun around as they moved away in horror, but she could already see that some of the zombies from the cul-de-sac had followed them.

   “We’re trapped,” cried Hermione.

   “No we’re not,” countered Terry resolutely. “Quick, over the fence again.” He stooped with his hands cupped, and Sarah wasted no time jumping onto them to scale the fence. As soon as she was high enough to see over though, she quickly crumpled her body to stop Terry from shoving her over the top. There were three zombies waiting on the other side, arms outstretched, heads lolling in excitement. “Not that way, not that way!” she shrieked

   They half fell to the ground and Hermione tried to help them scramble up, hauling them to the opposite side of the pathway.

   “Try this side!” she cried, her terrified eyes trained on the little girl. Every step they took away from her though took them closer to the approaching group from the cul-de-sac. “Hurry!”

   Sarah once again shoved her foot into Terry’s hands and she reached for the top of the fence, pulling herself up. A quick scan of this garden proved it to be zombie free, so she allowed herself to carry on up and over, landing on the muddy grass.

   “Ow!” she cried as her ankle rolled, and a sharp pain shot up her shin. She fell into a seated position, and cradled her foot in horror; she couldn’t have twisted it, could she?

   Hermione half climbed, half fell next to her. “Look out!” cried Terry in her wake. Hermione scrambled up out of the way, but all Sarah could do was shuffle to the side. Terry came soaring over, landing enviously on his feet.

   “Come on,” he hissed at the girls, but Sarah just looked piteously at him through the rain.

   “I think I’ve sprained my ankle,” she moaned as the fence began to shake and the zombies wailed on the other side.

   Terry didn’t even pause. He shoved his wand into Hermione’s hand, then scooped Sarah off the ground, cradling her in his arms. She tried to protest that she must be heavy, but Terry just started running towards the house at the end of the garden. They weaved between patio furniture and Hermione fired an _“Alohomora”_ at the French doors, sliding them open with such force they rocked a little on their rails.

   Terry ran inside and Hermione followed, closing the door behind them. They were in a living room with a swirling, garish carpet and a set of brown leather sofa and armchairs. It was in one of these that Sarah was dropped, and she slipped unceremoniously on the upholstery. “Let me see,” said Terry, pulling at her boot.

   “Ow!” she yelped, snatching her tender foot away from him. “I’ll take it off.” Terry rolled his eyes.

   “Fine, Hermione you check for zombies.”

   Hermione swiped tendrils of dripping hair way from her face and placed her hands on her hips. “You’re first aid trained, are you?”

   Terry shrugged. “I’ll just _‘Episky’_ it, give me my wand back.”

   Hermione scoffed as Sarah managed to pry her boot off. “That spell is used for cuts, how about _you_ go check for zombies, and I’ll look at the injury, hmm?”

   Terry showed no other reaction than to raise an eyebrow. Then he got to his feet, and walked out of the room, his eyes on Hermione the whole way.

   “Well,” she said, flustered. “Okay, so um, fine. Take your sock off please.”

   It was a very unpleasant sensation, peeling off the sodden sock from her throbbing foot, but eventually Sarah managed it. “Is it bad?” she asked in trepidation. Hermione didn’t answer, she just began gently moving Sarah’s foot about.

   “Does this hurt?” she asked, pulling it to the left, then the right. Sarah shook her head, and concentrated on the room they were in, rather than watching Hermione work. Every possible surface was covered in novelty mugs of all shapes and sizes. Sarah focused on a nearby one that looked like a frog.

   “Press against my hand,” said Hermione, and Sarah did as instructed, letting out a little gasp of pain. “Scale of one to ten?” asked Hermione. “Ten being the worst.”

   Sarah swallowed. “Uh, two?”

   Hermione didn’t look up. “And now honestly?”

   Sarah screwed up her face. “Five.”

   Hermione nodded. She pulled and pushed it a few more ways, and Sarah told her the pain was two or three. “Mild sprain,” said Hermione as Terry re-entered the room.

   “Zombie free,” he announced proudly. Hermione ignored him and fired a spell at Sarah’s foot instead. It instantly felt better.

   “Oh,” she sighed. “Thanks, that’s great.”

   Hermione didn’t look satisfied. “You really need some ointment, that’s just a basic anti-inflammatory, but it’s better than nothing. Can you put weight on it?”

   Slowly, Sarah shifted off the armchair and stood on her good leg. She carefully placed the bad one down, leaning her weight ever so slightly. “It’s okay,” she said truthfully. “Not great, but I think I can walk.”

   “Hmm,” said Terry, scrutinizing her bare foot. “You might need to do more than walk. Why’d you fall on it?”

   “To make your life more difficult!” flared Sarah in irritation, dropping back into the seat and picking up her squidgy sock. “It was an accident okay, I’m normally very spry when I’m not running from zombies!”

   “Alright, alright,” said Terry throwing up his hands. “Just kidding, okay?” Sarah didn’t answer him, and instead pulled all the laces loose on her boot to try and coax her foot back in. It was tender but she managed to make it fit.

   “Here,” said Hermione ruefully, holding out Terry’s wand for him. “You might as well have this back, I can’t do much with it.”

   “Gee, thanks,” said Terry, plucking it from her fingers.

   “Should Terry try the spell on my foot then?” asked Sarah, pausing between tightening laces.

   “What you done?”

   Sarah launched to her feet, wincing from jolt of pain that came from the damaged left one. Terry and Hermione spun on their heels. A man was standing in the doorway, a golf club raised in front of him. He wasn’t cursed, but he didn’t exactly look happy either. He was balding with a round tummy and glasses. He wore shorts, socks and sandals, despite the time of year, and his skin looked blotchy and pale. Eyes like a wild rabbit’s flicked between the three teenagers.

   “Oh I’m so sorry,” breathed Hermione in a mixture of anxious relief. “We thought the place was _empty.”_ She threw a look at Terry, who was frowning at the man.

   “Hiding,” rasped the man, his golf club still aloft.

   Hermione nodded enthusiastically. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “It’s not safe out there right now.”

   The man’s face crumpled. “What’d you _do?”_ he asked, and something cold ran though Sarah’s guts.

   “What?” she said. “No, no, we didn’t make the zombies.”

   “Don’t SAY that!” cried the man, edging forwards and shaking his club. Sarah didn’t take her eyes off him. “They ain’t right, they’re sick – put ‘em back!”

   Hermione was looking quite concerned now. “Sir,” she said placatingly. “We did not hurt these people, do you understand?”

   “I saw you,” he retaliated. “Saw what you did with that...that _thing!”_ He jerked his head at the wand now in Terry’s hand. “Why would you do this?”

   Sarah swallowed. They’d done magic in front of a Muggle. Admittedly the whole town was cursed, but this didn’t seem like the kind of Muggle that would react well, judging by his current misuse of his sports equipment. “She was just mending my foot,” she said delicately. “We’re trying to help everyone.”

   “You’re _witches!”_ spat the man. “Devil children! I know, I can see, I ain’t stupid.”

   “Really?” said Terry with a raised eyebrow. “There are monsters running around and you’re threatening the people trying to change them all back.”

   “It was YOU who made them like that in the first place!” the man shouted, his glasses slipping down his sweaty nose.

   “And just what is your logic for that!” snapped Hermione. She looked the colour of old porridge and her eyes were bloodshot, but her indignation was strong.

   “I saw you!” he cried again.

   “So what are you going to do about it?” challenged Sarah. “Huh? Hit a couple of kids with a golf club – what kind of a man are you!”

   The man tightened his grip, his eyes still shifting about. “Please,” he said. “Please make ‘em right again.”

   Terry growled in exasperation. “That’s what we were _trying_ to do,” he cried. “So just let us past and go back to cowering in the bath tub or wherever you were.”

   “No!” yelped the man, his club wavering. “Someone’s gotta make you do it, do what’s right! I ain’t leaving you until you fix ‘em, right now!”

   Sarah would have stomped her foot if they had both been fully functional. “We can’t do it here, you’re just wasting time!”

   “You can,” he argued. “I saw you pull my door open, and mend her foot!”

   “Okay,” said Terry. “Bored now.” He flicked his wand at the man. _“Confundo!”_

   The man swayed on the spot as the spell hit him. He blinked a couple of times, then dropped the golf club. “Huh?” he said, swaying again.

“Well,” said Terry brightly. “It was lovely to meet you, but we have to be going now, don’t we girls?”

   Sarah was stunned, but after a second she managed to nod. “Yeah,” she said.   “Yeah that’s right. You um, you go back and hide.”

   The man blinked. “Okay,” he said, a little smile on his face.

   “You just cursed a Muggle,” said Hermione, horrified, as the man trundled off back up his stairs.

   “Compared to the carnage that’s hit the rest of the town,” said Terry grimly. “I’m sure the Ministry won’t mind.”

   Sarah heard a soft thumping noise, and turned back to the French door. She couldn’t help but let out a little squeak when she realised there were three zombies outside, standing pathetically in the rain, pressing their palms against the glass.

   “Let’s just go,” she moaned as a forth zombie stumbled to join them. Terry and Hermione didn’t need convincing. They raced from the living room towards the front door and once more into the downpour.

   “Which way?” asked Terry, slamming the door behind them.

   Sarah looked up and down, she knew where they were and pointed right. “That way’s the town centre,” she said. “That would probably be a good place to look for some answers.”

   “Okay,” said Hermione. “It’s as good a plan as any. How’s your foot, can you walk?” Sarah nodded, fairly confident she could, so they set off.

   She had to limp a little, but Sarah was relieved to find she could at least keep moving on her own two feet. The street was narrow and lined with cute bungalows that had neat flower beds and name plaques like ‘Journey’s End’. They came to the end of the row and scrambled down a little hill onto a main road. Several zombies were scattered along the tarmac, wandering along in the rain, wailing every now and again.

   “Stick to the embankment,” said Terry. “Go fast.”

   Sarah went as fast as she could, but it wasn’t long before some of the cursed people were spotting them and turning around to fumble their way. “Not fast enough,” grunted Terry, and scooped up Sarah from behind.

   “Put me down!” she hissed indignantly, but Terry didn’t listen.

   They reached the end of the curving road and were spat out into the town centre; a big round courtyard with a couple of dozen shops and cafes, and the war memorial in the centre. “Oh we were here before!” exclaimed Hermione.

   The place was crawling with zombies, and it wouldn’t be long before they spotted the trio. It was a good job night was setting and the rain was hard enough to camouflage them. “Quick,” said Sarah, pointing to the nearest building. “Into the pub, it’s always open.”

   Terry darted over, shrugging Sarah up in his arms to readjust her weight, but Hermione got their first and heaved the big door open. “Wait!” she hissed, grabbing Terry’s wand again, and nipping inside the dark room. Terry gritted his teeth but did as he was bid, swinging around so he and Sarah could keep an eye on the zombies. They were able to tuck themselves into a little alcove that took them out of the rain and hopefully out of sight of any unfriendly townsfolk.

   “She needs her own wand back,” muttered Terry.

   Sarah wriggled and he let her stand on her own. “What happened to hers?” she asked.

   Terry shook his head and pulled a face. “Buried under some debris from your house probably.”

   Sarah gripped her own wand, guiltily. She knew she couldn’t do all that much with it, but she imagined how it would feel to not even have it at all, and she was the one that had caused the explosion.

   “Sorry,” she said out loud, even though Hermione wasn’t there.

   Terry shifted her weight in his arms. “How did you do that?” he asked. “That was a Hell of an explosion, what spell did you use?”

   Sarah had been wondering that herself. “Only a Reductor Curse,” she told him. “But I think I was so scared, it might have been more raw magic than controlled.”

   “All clear,” said Hermione, her face popping fleetingly back outside.  

   “Are you sure?” griped Terry, obviously still sore about missing the man with the golf club, but he darted inside anyway, Sarah right behind.

   The room was dark and quiet as the door swung shut. Sarah could just about make out chairs and tables made of dark wood and a slightly sticky carpet with a bold swirling pattern woven in. A juke box stood dead in the corner, and everything was permeated with the stale whiff of cigarettes and beer.

   “People actually like coming to these places?” said Sarah out loud but mostly to herself. Terry clicked his fingers and Hermione, rolling her eyes, gave his wand back. Despite knowing that she had already checked the place out, both Sarah and Terry began inspecting every nook and cranny they could find.

   Sarah crept up to a large window, radiating cold. “Did any of them see us?” whispered Hermione as she approached the glass. Sarah peered out though the gloomy rain, water dripping off her clothes as she leant over the chair in front of the window.

   She shook her head. “Don’t think so,” she whispered back. She was about to turn away when a strange light caught her eye. She almost dismissed it as one of the zombies letting off blue electricity, until she realised the light had been yellow, and her insides flipped over. “Guys,” she rasped, not taking her eyes away from the outside world but darting to the side of the window frame. “Guys, come here.” She reached her hand back and beckoned them as she squinted out across the square. All she could see were blurry shapes.

   “What?” whispered Terry, padding back over, his wet socks squelching on the carpet.

   Sarah shook her head and placed her face up to the glass. “I thought I saw...”

   But the words dried up. A bright, clear light shone out through the dank evening, making Terry and Hermione duck down the floor. Sarah had been ready for it though, and barely flinched, determined to see what was going on. Someone was outside with a wand, and they’d merely cast a _‘Lumos’_ spell. The zombies were converging on the figure, but something was holding them at bay, like a force field.

   “Who’s out there?” hissed Hermione.

   Sarah tried to squint harder, but recoiled in surprise when a second wand lit up, illuminating another person amongst the zombie folk. Between both the light sources she was able to see the two un-cursed people quite clearly.

   “Death Eaters,” she said flatly. “They’re Death Eaters.”

 

***

 

   “Chris?”

   Ron looked up at A.J. standing motionless in the underground corridor. The air seemed to be burning his lungs as he gripped onto the wall behind him, his vision tilting as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.

   “No,” rasped Abbey, sinking to the floor, shaking hands covering her mouth. “No, no.”

   “CHRIS!” A.J. vaulted to his friend, lying prone on the floor, and seized his shoulders. “Buddy, come on, wake up!” He felt under his chin. “He’s got no pulse! Help him!” He barley even looked at Ron and Abbey before pouncing on his friend’s chest and pumping with both hands.

   “Darlin’,” said Abbey, her voice strained. “Darlin’ it’s no use.” She was shivering from head to toe, her eyes glassy and fixed on A.J.

   “He needs help!” screamed A.J., blowing into Chris’ mouth. “What did she do to him, what’s happening!”

 _“Avada Kedavra,”_ whispered Ron, the killing curse having no effect from his listless lips. “He’s gone.”

   A.J. didn’t reply, he just kept thumping on Chris’ chest, trying to get him to breath. “C’mon dude,” he said. “C’mon it’s not real, just a bit of light, it can’t hurt you.”

   A sob cracked through the air, and A.J.’s head snapped over to see Abbey dissolving. Her arms were wrapped around her like it was the only thing holding her together, her knees pulled to her chest as she gasped for air. “I’m sorry,” she cried pitifully. “I’m so sorry.”

   Ron couldn’t bear it, his heart seemed to be made of cold lead, his skin nothing but shivers and goose bumps.

   This was his fault.

   “No!” yelled A.J., becoming angry. “No you get over here and you _FIX HIM!”_

   Abbey let out another painful cry, digging her fingers into her clothes. A.J. stopped his compressions and instead hauled Chris’ body onto his knees, propping his head up in his hands.

   Ron swallowed. “It’s my fault,” he said, the lump in his throat making it almost impossible to talk. “You didn’t want to come, I shouldn’t have let you, you should have stayed at home.”

   An icy tear slide down his cheek, but Abbey pushed herself up again and wiped her face with her fingers. “It wasn’t you,” she said through clenched teeth, fury overriding her features. “It were that _woman.”_

   “No,” said A.J. again, shaking his head violently. “No, no he’s not, he can’t be...” He began patting Chris all over, tapping his arms, chest, face with his hands. “Chris, Chris, no Chris _please.”_

   Perhaps it was the look on Ron and Abbey’s faces, their quiet despair, their reluctance to even try and help because they knew there was literally nothing they could do. Whatever it was, A.J. finally seemed to realise the true extent of the situation, and broke.

   His face crumpled, his chest shaking as he folded down, covering Chris’ lifeless body with his own, rocking back and forth as he cried. “Bring him back!” he whispered into their clothes. “Use your magic!”

   “There’s nothing can be done baby,” said Abbey, trembling. “That’s the worst anyone can do.”

   “She’s crazy,” breathed Ron. He could feel his eyes wide with fear and remorse. “She’s with You-Know-Who’s inner circle, she wants the stone-”

   “He’s _dead,”_ interrupted A.J. savagely, his head snapping up and his mouth snarling. “It doesn’t matter, he won’t care, you dragged us into this mess and now he’s DEAD!” He suddenly released Chris and lurched for Ron, bowling them both to the floor.

   “Stop it!” shrieked Abbey, but A.J. landed a solid punch on Ron’s jaw, pain exploding through his head and blood blossoming in his mouth.

   “He was my _best friend!”_ howled A.J., hitting Ron again and again. “He trusted you and you lead us here, to this _nightmare!”_

   “Y’all _quit it!”_ yelled Abbey, seizing hold of A.J.’s shoulders and manhandling him off of Ron. A.J. stumbled and stared at both of them. Abbey raised her hands slowly. “No one’s sayin’ this ain’t plain awful, but Ron didn’t do it, I won’t have you beatin’ on him.”

   “He isn’t _Ron!”_ roared A.J., thrusting his finger at Ron’s face. “He’s just wearing his _skin!_ You’ve ruined everything, why did you have to _come here!”_ His knees gave way, and he crashed to the floor, groping at Chris’ clothes.

   Ron was crushed by just how right he was. He hadn’t meant to come here though, they’d been trying to send Malfoy and Sarah back to where they belonged. He shouldn’t have kicked up such a fuss, he should have just listened to his American mother and stayed at home. He was selfish and useless and he’d gotten an innocent boy killed.

   A.J. was shivering, his palms placed on Chris’ chest. He stared unblinking at his friend’s lifeless face, his breathing slow and heavy. “It was just light,” he said, his voice still shaking. “Just…green light. How can it, he can’t be…”

   He trailed off, his fingers wrapped around the fabric of Chris’ East County High t-shirt, staring at his closed eyes.

   Ron looked at Abbey, who bit her lip. Neither of them said anything for a while, and Ron just leant against the rough rock face, letting the jagged edges dig into his palms. He wanted the pain, he wanted to punish himself. Why couldn’t he have just been strong, like Harry? Why had he let Chris tag along, why hadn’t he listened to A.J and insisted they stayed at home? They had no business being here, they couldn’t defend themselves and now Bellatrix Lestrange was after them.

   He guessed she was after the Philosopher’s Stone, if he was right and that’s what these obstacles were guarding, like at their own school. Heck, he could be completely wrong. Harry had had to deal with something similar getting to You-Know-Who’s lair in that other reality, he’d even met Fluffy too. Maybe the Dark Lord was fooling them all and hiding under the school and Bellatrix was just trying to get back to him?

   Ron shuddered. Whatever the reason, he thought morosely, it didn’t really matter. If they were in Bellatrix’s way, it didn’t matter why. It would end just as badly.

   It had already ended badly. Ron couldn’t blame A.J. for refusing to believe Chris was gone, it had happened so fast. _Why_ couldn’t he have closed the door quicker? _Why_ couldn’t Christ have stood a foot to the left?

   He scraped his hands on the wall, and pain spiked through his nerves as he drew blood. Good, he deserved it. If he had only…

   There were too many ‘if onlys’. He felt overwhelmed by them. He wiped his hands on his jeans and hugged himself as he tried to breath. Chris, poor Chris. He’d believed him, he’d been so enthralled by the magic, and it had killed him. Ron swallowed the sick that threatened to creep up his throat. His head was pounding so he rubbed his fingers on his temples, hoping he wasn’t smearing blood on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said to no one in particular.

   A.J. sat for a little longer, a fresh wave of grief sweeping over him once or twice as he screwed up his face, tears leaking through the painful grimace as he struggling for breath. But the longer they sat, the calmer he managed to become. After a time, Ron wasn’t sure how long, Abbey shifted to sit beside A.J. and rubbed his back.

   A.J. blew out a shaky breath and wiped his face with the back of his shirt. “It’s not fair,” his said, his voice small.

   “I know,” Abbey said, and moved to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “I know sugar.”

   A noise suddenly drew Ron’s attention to the door behind him, that lead to the room with the flying keys. The wall in the other room had collapsed behind them, but now he could hear scraping and banging.

   “She’s coming,” he gasped. “Guys, she’s coming, we have to go, now!” He was almost ashamed for the fear that spike through him, but then he remembered all the terrible stories he’d heard about Bellatrix Lestrange.

   “But Chris!” cried Abbey, horrified.

   Ron clamped his jaw together and looked down at the blond boy lying peacefully on the ground. “We could take him with us?”

   “No,” said A.J. to his surprise. The other boy gave his friend’s t-shirt one last squeeze, then laid his hand flat on Chris’ unmoving chest. “We can’t help him now, right?”

   Abbey shook her head sadly. “There’s no spell in whole world,” she said sadly.

   A.J. nodded. “Then we have to let him go.” His voice slipped, but he blinked and held onto his resolve. “Or that woman will kill us all.”

   Ron was taken aback by his practical response, but he was right. Bellatrix would certainly kill them all without even pause for thought.

   “We can’t leave Chris’ body though,” argued Abbey. “It ain’t right – if only she didn’t take my wand, we could camouflage him till we get back.”

   A.J. swallowed and searched the ground they were standing on. “Here,” he said, picking up a stubby black wand. “Take this one, and let’s go.” He turned on his heel and began walking up the stone corridor, his shoulders set, his hands clenched.

   Ron didn’t waste any time, he heaved Chris’ dead weight into a sitting position and propped him up against the wall. _“Concealious,”_ he said, and with a little ripple Chris became a pile of rocks. They all looked like they were the exact same rock duplicated over and over again, but Ron reckoned it would do the job well enough. He ran over to the trembling door and pulled the winged key out. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt it would be better than leaving it for Bellatrix to find.

   “Come on,” he said, and he and Abbey set of after A.J.

   “Doubt I’ll be able to get a teacup to dance with this here thing,” said Abbey ruefully, gripping onto Bellatrix’s wand. “What in tarnation is goin’ on here? How can this all be happenin’ so fast? You show up, Rodriguez, the traps, her?”

   Ron shook his head. “Don’t ask me,” he said. “This is all horribly wrong.”

   “Poor Chris,” said Abbey, her voice small.

   They reached A.J., who had stopped in front of a door. Probably because in front of that door, stood a goblin. A.J. looked incredibly weary, like the goblin was a dangerous wild animal that might pounce on him and rip his throat out. Ron became apprehensive for an entirely different reason; they needed to get some kind of barrier between them and Bellatrix as soon as possible, and goblins were notorious for making things unnecessarily complicated.

   “It said it’s a goblin,” said A.J. tersely. If Ron had just watched Harry die, he doubted he would have been able to stand up ever again, let alone think straight or deal with a goblin, but A.J. was managing it. He seemed shut down, closed off, but he was functioning. Even the thought of Harry dying make him shiver.

   “Not it,” drawled the goblin. “He.” Ron found it very strange to here a goblin talk with an American accent; he wondered if his royal blue tunic was a uniform from an American bank. It certainly wasn’t Gringotts. “Fiddlewink, at your service.”

   “Okay then Fiddlewink,” said Abbey with a nod. “We need to get through your door here lickety split, how do we do that, and how do we do it fast?”

   “I require an offering,” said Fiddlewink simply.

   “An offering?” asked Ron. He ran his hand through his hair, un-sticking it from his scalp. “What kind of offering?”

   The goblin smiled. “You have three tries to give me an offering that will suffice. You cannot take back what you offer, but only if you present me with something suitable will the door open.”

   “Oh man!” cried Abbey, flinging her hands out in frustration. “God damn goblins! Always wantin’ somethin’.”

   “No,” said Ron. “No wait, this is good. If we can just get through the door we’ll lose Bellatrix.” He turned to the goblin. “Can you give us any clues as to what you might want?”

   The goblin raised his hand in front of his face, extended a long green finger, and wagged it back and forth with a tut.

   “Okay...well, goblins like treasure,” said Ron, thinking aloud. “Anyone got any cash?”

   Abbey looked at him incredulously, then waved her hands up and down her cheerleading uniform. “No,” she said pointedly. “No pockets.”

   “Point taken.” He pulled out the contents of his own pockets. “Okay, so I’ve got...some kind of money,” he said confused, looking at the strange currency he now found in his hand. Whatever it was it wasn’t much. “A green smartie, two bottle tops and some owl pellets – food, not the other kind,” he added hastily.

   “I’ve got my pager,” put forward A.J. His face was effectively blank, and his voice wasn’t much better. He pulled out a little rectangular box from his pocket; Ron didn’t know what it was but he decided not to ask. “It’s brand new, pretty expensive.”

   “Thanks A.J.” said Abbey, taking it from him. “That might do it, they like pricey things.” She smiled at him and he nodded back at her. She turned and held it down to the goblin. He held out his hand for her to place the pager in, and once she let go he took it behind his back without even pausing to look at it. The door remained closed.

   “I take it that didn’t work,” stated Ron. The goblin just inclined his head and kept on smiling. “Okay, what else?” He looked warily back down the corridor; how much time did they have left?

   “I’ve only got a few bucks,” said A.J. inspecting his pockets. “My house keys, a guitar pick-”

   His voice caught at this, Ron didn’t want to know why but he could guess.

   “Maybe it’s a different kind of offering,” said Abbey, wearily eyeing the goblin. “Like...something you have to physically do.”

   “Oh!” said Ron turning to face them. “Hermione told me last week she and Malfoy – Draco – whatever, they had to give something to a painting so it would open up and let them into a secret passageway.”

   “Well what was it?” asked Abbey.

   “It was um, well it was blood,” said Ron reluctantly. Having been excited about remembering this information he now wasn’t so sure he wanted to cut his hand open or anything.

   “Oh well that’s easy,” said Abbey happily, and once again turned to face the goblin. She lifted up her left knee, the one that got scraped the worst when she’d fallen to the floor before, and held it in front of his face. “That enough blood?”

   Fiddlewink raised his hand and wiped it across her knee, making her wince and suck in a breath through her teeth. Just as before he then put his hand back behind his back, almost without reaction, and the door did not open. “Aw Hell,” said Abbey, putting her leg down again. “I thought for sure that’d work. What else does he want?” she exclaimed, her hands in the air. “He’s had something expensive, something painful...”

   “I don’t think Dumbledore or Crabtree would want us to, like, kill ourselves or anything,” Ron ventured. “But maybe it needs to be something a bit more personal – I mean, those two things were hardly a wrench to give away.” The other two nodded which made him relieved, he wasn’t sure really if what he’d said made sense. “Maybe it has to be something we’d miss?”

   A.J. closed his hand around the guitar pick, his eyes glassing up again. “Here,” he said thickly, reaching out his closed hand. “You – you can have this.”

   Fiddlewink raised an eyebrow. “You have already given an offering,” he told A.J. coldly.

   “What!” cried Abbey, stamping her foot. “You never said nothin’ about only givin’ one thing each!”

   “Yeah,” chipped in Ron as A.J. retracted Chris’ guitar pick. “You didn’t tell us that was a rule!”

   “I am telling you now,” the goblin informed him with half a grin. Abigail huffed, then she and A.J. turned to look at Ron.

   “I guess it’s down to you then darlin’,” said Abbey, raising her eyebrow. Ron swallowed and rubbed his hands together. His mind was totally blank – what else could they possibly give him? He didn’t have anything on him that would be a true sacrifice to give, he would have to try a different tactic.

   He looked fretfully down the corridor. “I don’t know,” he said, in a small voice.

   “There’s gotta be something,” insisted A.J. “You said these guys like money and treasure and stuff – are any of your clothes expensive?”

   “How the bloody Hell should I know!” snapped Ron looking down at the shorts he was barely keeping on his hips, the t-shirt missing its sleeves and the chequered flannel shirt. “I didn’t dress myself this morning, these aren’t my clothes – do any of them look posh to you?” he asked, holding out his arms, and turning round for the Americans to see.

   “No,” they both said in unison. He harrumphed and crossed his arms. Typical.

   “Hang on,” he said as something slowly dawned on him. “Hang on a minute. We know Goblins love treasure and stuff, yeah?” Abbey nodded. A.J. just raised his eyebrows. “So you’d think that’s what you needed to give him to get past. But...but what if that was like a – a red herring or something? Too obvious? What if he wants something that’s _not_ physical or worth anything?”

   “Like what?” asked Abbey.

   “Dunno,” he admitted, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. “But we sang Fluffy a song.” He stopped himself. Chris had sung Fluffy a song.

   “I don’t think I could sing anything well enough to qualify as a present,” said Abbey quietly. A.J. shook his head.

   “How about a story,” he suggested after a minute’s thought, rubbing the guitar pick between his fingers. “Or a joke?”

   “I know a joke!” Ron jumped in, excitedly. It was the only one he could ever remember, Fred and George had taught it to him, but he thought it was really funny. “Do you think a joke might work?”

   There was a loud cracking noise from behind them, and all three heads turned in panic.

   “Try it,” instructed Abbey. “Just do it, we are outta time.”

   Ron spun around to the goblin. “So, um, so this guy goes into his doctor and tells him ‘Doctor! I’ve think I’ve been bitten by a vampire’ and the doctor says ‘Okay, drink this glass of water.’ The guy asks ‘Will it make me better?’ and the doctor says ‘No, I but I'll be able to see if your neck leaks’.”

   He watched Fiddlewink, not daring to even breathe. The other two were frozen by his side. Slowly, the corner of the creature’s mouth twitched.

   “Hmm,” he rumbled low in his throat. “Hm hm hm.” His smile became wider, but Ron couldn’t tell if his joke was funny, or it was their impending deaths at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange making him laugh.

   There was a creek.

   Ron snapped his head to look at the dark wooden door as it juddered, scraped, then heavily swung away from them. Beyond was totally pitch black, but Ron didn’t care. “Yes!” he cried, punching the air.

   “You did it!” yelled Abbey, slapping his back.

   “Move,” said A.J. “Now.”

   The three of them ran without hesitation past the goblin and into the next room; whatever was laying in wait for them in the dark was undoubtedly preferable to Bellatrix Lestrange.

   “Watch yourself if she gets through,” Ron called to Fiddlewink over his shoulder. “She’s a nasty piece of work.”

   “She can only enter,” he replied completely at ease. “If she presents a satisfactory offering.”

   Ron was worried for his safety, but he guessed the goblin could fend for himself. The three of them stepped carefully over the door’s threshold, trying to see where they were going, but even with Abbey lighting Bellatrix’s borrowed wand it wasn’t much use. The door groaned slowly shut again, and for a second they were plunged into almost total darkness.

   _“Lumos,”_ whispered Ron, but the light from Bill’s wand added little to the gloom. Now neither of them had their own wands, it made him quail just thinking how they could hope to defend themselves against Bellatrix if she got through.

   “What’s that noise?” breathed A.J. The trio stood very still, ears pricked. There was a sort of whooshing sound up ahead, several in fact. Ron wondered if it was wings beating – large wings – and he gripped onto his borrowed wand. But then there was another sort of squealing, scratching sound above their heads he really couldn’t place.

   “Everyone stay together,” he muttered, reaching out in the dark to find the other two. He strained his eyes as they flicked in every direction, acutely aware of any movement. His ears were desperately hanging onto every sound as well, but it was hard with the blood pumping through his head.

   “Hello-o!” Abbey called out suddenly, making Ron jump so much he almost tripped over himself.

   “Shut up!” he hissed, enraged. “What if there’s something out there that wants to eat us!”

   “Aw relax,” she told him with a wave of the hand. “We already beat a monster, what’s the chances they managed to convince two beasties to sit and wait patiently down here.” She raised her wand and gazed into the blackness.

   “Probably quite a high chance!” said Ron a little high pitched. “You have no idea-”

   “Hey!” cried A.J. suddenly, pointing over to the right. “Look over there.” There was a small glow emanating from a point about thirty or forty feet away, it was hard to judge the distance. As it grew brighter, a second light appeared on their left, and then before they knew it a dozen or so orange flames were lining the walls either side of them, about fifteen feet from where they were standing.

   Now everything was illuminated, Ron had rather wished it had stayed in the dark. They were standing on a small stone platform; if any of them had moved another foot or two outwards when they hadn’t been able to see it would have been an almost certain death, as the edges dropped down into a seemingly endless blackness. Ron felt his stomach flip as he shuffled away from the drop.

   The other side of the room was perhaps half a Quidditch pitch length away, where an identical platform protruded from the wall in front of an identical closed door. Connecting these two jetties was a narrow stone walkway, perhaps only a couple of feet in width. And swinging above that, their handles disappearing into the pitch, were several enormous metal mallets. That was the only way Ron could describe them; massive, shiny, thundering hammers. The circumference of the smooth, round heads were at least as tall as Ron, and they rocked back and forth gracing the surface of the walkway by centimetres.

   “Oh you have got to be kidding me!” cried Ron as the other two stood with their mouths open. “Who in the Fairying Forest thought this up? We have to run across a tiny bridge avoiding getting whacked by the giant mallets, or else we’ll get smashed into oblivion!”

   He was aware his voice was approaching a shriek by the time he’d finished, but he thought that was probably appropriate. Abbey’s eyes were very wide, absorbing everything that she was now seeing.

   “It’s the ones that’re close together that’ll be tricky – we’ll have to time it very carefully.”

   “Oh you think?!” demanded Ron. “That walkway is narrow enough anyway, and then we have to run across in-between swings, look!” He pointed at the two closest to them. “They’re right after each other, how will we get past?”

   “By being fast!” shouted A.J., throwing his hands out in exasperation. “What’s the alternative, stay here, get caught, let Chris die for nothing?”

   Ron swallowed, ashamed of his cowardliness. A.J. was right, they had to keep going, there was no stopping now. They couldn’t let Bellatrix get the Philosopher’s Stone, if that really was what was down there, and Chris’ death absolutely couldn’t be in vain.

   “Okay then,” he said sheepishly. “How do we go about this?”

   “I’ll go first,” said Abbey, committed. “I can call out the moves after I’m through, guide you along.”

   Ron nodded, and the three of them edged up towards the first mallet.

   Abbey watched it swing by, the second hot on its heels. She then stood on her tiptoes and took a good look at the third hammer in their path. Just under her breath Ron could hear her counting.

   “Okay,” she said, smoothing down her dirty cheerleading uniform nervously. “There’s not enough room for us all to go at once, so you’ll have to wait till I get all the way till the other side and I’ll call you over.”

   “Right,” said Ron tersely. He felt incredibly sick, his headache worse than ever. Just take deep breaths, he told himself. It will be fine, they could do this.

   “So – the first one you gotta go as soon as it’s clear, don’t wait for the second one or you won’t have enough time before the first one comes back,” she instructed the boys. “There’s room to wait before the third one, as that has a big swing, so just go when you’ve caught your breath. After that I can’t tell, so I’ll just shout on back when I’ve figured it.”

   “Good luck,” said A.J.

   Abbey took a long, deep breath, and when the mallet swung by next she ran for it. Ron felt his knees go weak as she did, but within a second she shouted “Clear!” back at them. He saw her go again, and then she was lost from vision behind the three swinging mallets. “Clear!” she called once more, and Ron let go of the breath he was holding.

   “How many more do you recon there are?” asked A.J. not taking his eyes off the walkway. Ron rubbed his own eyes.

   “Dunno – that’s three. I’d say there’s at least three or four more.” Just then Abbey’s voice called out again.

   “Okay – this one ain’t good!” Ron was worried that would be the case.

   “How come?” he called out.

   “You gotta stand in the path of the fourth one for three whole seconds whilst the fifth one swings past. You literally gotta jump as soon as it’s clear otherwise the fourth one’ll getcha.”

   Ron took a moment to digest that. “Okay,” he said in a small voice.

   “Right – here I go,” she yelled out. Ron hugged himself and A.J. covered his mouth with his hand.

   “Come on,” Ron moaned, nausea taking over him and for a fleeting moment he thought he might faint.

   “Clear!” screamed Abbey and the boys breathed out in relief. They could hear her gasping for air. All the blood seemed to rush back into Ron’s head. “Alright,” she said, a little calmer. “There’s only two more – the first is no big deal, just run when it passes, but the last is super fast and there’s not much room between the two.” It was quiet for a minute or so, and Ron rubbed his temples. He really did feel very ill now. “I think there’s actually a pattern where you can get through both at once,” came Abbey’s voice again. “Okay – I’m a go now. I’ll holler when I’m on the other platform.”

   Ron closed his eyes. “Come on,” he muttered to himself. “Come on you can do this...”

   “I did it!” she yelled, jubilant. “I did it, I’m here!”

   The boys roared in relief. “YES!” yelled Ron, punching the air.

   A.J. was already sombre again, nodding and eyeing up the mallet in front of them. “Okay,” he said. “I think I should go next, I can’t protect myself against that woman.”

   Ron didn’t object, and within seconds A.J. had disappeared. Abbey began bellowing out instructions, and Ron waited patiently as the four cries of “Clear!” rang out and he was safe on the other side.

   “Okay,” he called out when the other two stopped celebrating; he tried to keep his voice from shaking but it was hard. “I’m going to go now.”

   “’Member, just tear it when the first one’s past,” called out Abbey. Ron nodded, even though there was no one to see him do it. He watched the metal mallets swing past a couple of times. He went to go then stopped himself; this happened twice. “You okay pumpkin?” came Abbey’s voice timidly from the other side of the chasm. Ron nodded again.

   “Yep...I’m going now,” he yelled back. He screwed up his fists, Bill’s wand comforting in his right hand, and sucked in a breath so deep it made him dizzy. The first mallet went, and a burst of energy erupted through his feet. He raced along the walkway, one foot after the other, the gust of wind from the second mallet whipping his hair back. He stumbled to a halt and looked back over his shoulder at the two pendulums he had just bested. “Clear,” he said in a rather weak voice, and the two Americans whooped.

   “The next one’s easy,” cried out A.J. firmly. “Just run when it’s just gone past you.”

   “Cool,” replied Ron. “Okay, yeah – got it.” He was feeling encouraged after his first success, and as soon as the third metal hammer swept past him he darted across its path.

   “Cle-!” he started to shout, but a hot jet of green light hissed past his head, inches from his ear, and he screamed out, diving to what little floor was available to him. He groped at the rough sides of the stone walk way, his body pressed to the floor. “What the Hell?” he screeched out.

   “Ron what’s wrong?” cried Abbey, desperate. “You okay, we can’t see!”

   Another spell, this one sapphire blue, fired above Ron’s head. “Someone’s shooting at me!”

   “Little BRATS!” squalled Bellatrix Lestrange. “You dare challenge me, do you know who I am!”

   “A flipping nutter,” cried Ron tiredly, his already throbbing head swimming alarmingly. He shakily got to his feet, spells flying over his head.

   “Mudbloods!” wailed Bellatrix. “Infidels, you dare defy the Dark Lord!”

   “Ron you gotta move!” yelled out Abbey. “Get past the next one – ‘member the three second rule!”

   “Yeah,” said Ron shakily. He tried to steady his wobbly legs and looked behind him. The way the first three mallets swung meant he couldn’t really see Bellatrix standing on the platform, but he could hear her shrieking insults at him.

   “Oh you little dungbeatle, I’ll show you – come to Auntie Bella, I’ll show you what happens when you cross He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.”

   Ron shook his head and tried to block her out. He edged as close as he could to the fourth mallet – he had to stand for three whole seconds in its path before he could safely pass the fifth pendulum.

   “Okay,” he whispered to himself. “Go!” He stepped forward, he could almost feel the cold from the fourth mallet as it swung in front of his body. “One Flourish and Blotts,” he croaked, willing his feet to stay where they were. “Two Flourish and Blotts, three Flourish and Blotts!” With a gasp he jumped by the fifth mallet just as the fourth one came back. “CLEAR!” he cried in relief. Now there were only two mallets in his path he could see Abbey and A.J. on the jetty ahead. They screamed in jubilation.

“Okay baby, you just gotta run like all Hell when I tell you to, okay?” Abbey called to him, and he saluted weakly back to show he understood. Another purple spell flew over their heads and exploded on the wall by A.J.’s head. Ron wanted to fire something back in retaliation, but the mallets still swung between them. He wanted to know if she’d got past any of the first three mallets, but instead he concentrated on the remaining two in front of him. Abbey was following them intently with her eyes, her jaw locked tight in concentration. She raised her eyebrows and opened he mouth; Ron tensed to run.

   “GO!” she screamed, and Ron sprinted with all his might. The pendulums rocked past, the wind pulling in their wake stronger than any of the previous ones, so much so he almost lost his balance. But he didn’t, he kept one foot in front of the other, until he ran right into A.J. and Abbey who grabbed at him in relief. He let out a strangled sort of cry in victory, but he was snapped back to reality pretty quickly by another spell hitting the wall not two feet from his head.

   “Through the door,” he gasped. “Hurry.”

   They ran to the wooden door, and Ron could have kissed it when it turned out not to be locked. Flinging themselves through it, he and Abbey turned once again to fire as many spells they could at it to make sure it was locked.

   “We made it,” said A.J. hoarsely.

   The first thing Ron noticed was the blissful silence that hung in the air around him. Turning around from the door, he could see thick green hedges lining either side of a flagstone pathway; if he’d wanted to he could have stood in the middle and touched the edges of the leaves with his fingertips. The greenery was tall, taller than Ron by a good few feet, and it extended back to the wall behind them so it was flush. It then carried on about a dozen feet in front of them until it ended in a T junction. Above them was black, just black. Ron couldn’t tell if it was a starless night or a very high ceiling, but there was a faint breeze floating by. A soft light glowed from within the shrubbery walls at regular intervals, but again Ron couldn’t tell what was causing it.

   Carefully, and without a word, the three students slowly walked to the end of the pathway and looked in both directions. To the left the path lasted about twenty feet before it turned right, and to the right it was about the same but with two additional left turn offs before the path actually veered left. Ron groaned.

   “It’s a bloody maze,” he said rubbing his temple. If only this headache would go away, he thought. Everything would be so much easier.

   “Do you reckon there’s nasty things in there to slow us down,” asked Abbey, looking warily over her shoulder.

   Ron nodded. “Probably, but we’ll have to find out I guess.” He look left and right as his stomach filled up with a heavy dread. They could be lost in here for hours.

   A.J. walked a few paces to the left and placed his hand on the bush. “Y’know,” he said hesitantly. “I read something once about mazes.”

   Ron looked over at him as he bit his lip.

   Abbey raised her eyebrows hopefully. “Somethin’ that could help?”

   A.J. looked back at them and shrugged, that dead look still haunting him. The adrenalin thrill from the mallets had left him already and he was tired with grief once more. “I’ve never tried it, and I don’t know if it’s true or not. But, this thing said that if you keep your left hand on the wall and follow it round at all times, that’ll get you through a maze.”

   Ron stared at him. He was too exhausted to work out if that was genius or insanity. “So...you just go where you left hand takes you?” he asked.

   “Or I guess the right would work just as well – I think it means that you don’t go over the same way twice.”

   “Yeah...” said Abbey slowly. “It might take longer, but it would lead you out eventually, it would have to.” She looked at Ron excitedly, but he just felt his shoulders drop.

   “It’s a _magic_ maze,” he cried in frustration. “It probably has staircases, and bits of hedge that like to move about!” He was thinking of all the corridors and passages at Hogwarts; you were lucky if you could go a week without being stumped by some section of stones that had gone for a walk or wanted to play a trick on you.

   There was something else that was bothering him, as well. It was gnawing at the ends of his nerves.   He wouldn’t let on to his two companions, but the last experience he’d had with a maze had ended with Harry dropping from thin air, battered from fighting for his life with You-Know-Who and dragging the body of Cedric Diggory with him. It wasn’t exactly a comforting memory.

   “It’s our best bet,” said Abbey, resolved and more or less ignoring Ron’s outburst. ‘C’mon, we better high tail it ‘fore that crazy woman blows the damn door down.”

   Ron sighed, and nodded in agreement. She was right, it was the only option they had really, it was perhaps a little better than running round blind.

   With that, they took off at a run, A.J. in the lead and taking them left at every turn. As expected, they ended up going all round the houses, through tunnels, down and then up stairs, but after ten minutes or so Ron allowed himself to feel a little relief that they had not once run into an obstacle of any kind.

   “Who is she?” asked A.J. after a while, his tone stony.

   Ron took a moment to realise what he was talking about. “Oh, um,” he said, feeling irrationally guilty. Like knowing who Bellatrix was made him responsible for Chris’ death. “Bellatrix Lestrange, one of You-Know-Who’s favourites.” He swallowed hard and thought of Neville Longbottom. “She tortured my friend’s parents to death.”

   On that ominous note, they slowed their run to a walk, and as a natural silence descended over them Ron wished desperately they had some water. The cheese toasties in the Thunderbird changing room seemed a lifetime ago now. He rubbed his throat and gasped.

   “Hey!” cried a very high pitched voice. The three of them spun round to see who had spoken. A tiny fairy, no bigger than the palm of his hand, flew up to Ron’s face. She was glowing green and clad in a leafy dress, her eyes were black like a beetles. “Do you wanna drink? I’ll take you to where you can get a drink!”

   “No!” cried another voice as a second little fairy, this one luminescent purple, buzzed out of the bushes. “Don’t listen to _her_ – I’ll get you out of here!”

   Their voices were squeaky, like a child’s toy. One fairy grabbed Ron’s shirt with her tiny hands and pulled back the way they’d come, the other took a hold of Abbey’s skirt and tried to get them to go down a turning on the right. “No thank you,” said Abbey, swatting the purple fairy away. “We know where we’re going.”

   “No you don’t!” said a yellow fairy, popping up from behind A.J. “You’re going the wrong way, you’re in terrible danger – follow me!”

   Ron looked at Abbey. “What’s the betting they’re here to confuse us?”

   “Hell yeah,” she said, nodding in agreement. “Go on, scat! A.J. lead the way.” They continued with their ‘only turn left’ policy, the three fairies flitting about their heads.

   “Yes!” squealed a new turquoise fairy, flying out of the bush ahead. “You’re going the right way, I’ve been here for years, follow me!”

   “Just keep going A.J.” said Abbey through clenched teeth. He nodded and took them left once more. Several other fairies, all of different colours, joined them as they walked, all telling them to turn different ways to reach different things. Food, clean clothes, a place to sleep. A glittering emerald fairy shot up in front of A.J.’s face.

   “Come with me,” she cooed. “I know where to find your friend, the one you lost.” A.J. stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Abbey and Ron to almost run into him.

   “No,” snapped Abbey, running in front of A.J. and grabbing him by the shoulders. “There’s a whole bunch of ways she could know about Chris, don’t you listen to her.” She spun around and pointed at the emerald fairy. “That’s just plain wicked!” she scolded. “You oughta be ashamed of yourself.”

   “But I _do_ know the way,” the fairy whined. Ron batted her away.

   “Go torment someone else.”

   They continued with their increasingly noisy entourage, but Ron found the more there were, the more they actually cancelled each other out. The strain on his head though was pretty awful.

   All of a sudden, his legs gave way, the sensation they’d turned to jelly unavoidably prevalent. He grabbed out at the branches of the hedge and managed to stop himself falling all the way to the stone floor. His vision swirled dangerously and he sucked in a lungful of air as nausea engulfed him. “Wait!” he managed to grunt out as the other two were heading off. Abbey turned and called out to A.J. to come back.

   “What’s wrong?” she asked concerned as they approached. “You feelin’ okay?”

   “I’ll show you where to get some medicine!” cried a pink fairy.

   “No I _told_ you he needs a bed,” insisted the yellow one.

   Ron shook his head and fell to all fours. The blood was pumping so hard in his ears it was hard to keep his eyes open or hear anything she was saying. “Headache,” he moaned, grabbing his head with his hand and rocking into a sitting position. He covered his eyes and leant against the bush.

   “A headache?” Abbey repeated, but Ron didn’t take his hands from his eyes to look at her; the darkness was seemingly helping.

   “Yeah,” he whispered, breathing slowly and steadily. “Had it since I got here – never normally get ‘em.”

   There was an awkward pause and Ron thought he heard some feet shuffling over the fairies’ din. “Ron – we have to keep going,” said A.J.

   “Yeah, I know!” he replied, still not looking up. “I’ve been dragging myself on ever since we got in this bloody tunnel. I don’t...I can’t...”

   He lost track of what he’d been saying as his nausea went from being in his head to being on the floor. “Ewwa!” shrieked Abbey as she and A.J. jumped backwards and away from the mess. Ron leant back and wiped his mouth, attempting to get the foul bitter taste off his lips. The heaviness on his head had lifted considerably and he blew out a sigh of relief.

   “That’s better,” he said with a grin. The two Americans looked from their sick splattered shoes to Ron’s slightly more rosy face.

   “Well that’s _de-_ lightful,” said Abbey, a false positivity ringing through her words.   Several fairies offered routes to find mops and buckets. A.J. leaned over and offered his arm for Ron to get up with. Ron took it gratefully; he didn’t exactly feel right as rain but he did feel well enough to walk.

   “You not feelin’ alright sweetie?” asked Abbey, concerned. Ron shook his head, and resisted the urge to divulge just how rotten he was really feeling.

   “Better now,” he said, and tried really hard not to wish for a drink. It was hard with a particularly robust fairy pulling on his ear and telling him an alleged way to a pub.

   They walked. The fairies continued relentlessly with their directions, but they only followed A.J. There were damp, earthy smelling underground passageways, and tunnels that went on for ages, twisting and turning surrounded by topiary. But never once did they rise above the top of the hedge so they could get a look at where they were going. Abbey suggested at one point A.J. give her a shoulder sit so she could get high enough to see, but she hit her head painfully on some invisible barrier so decided not to try again. This made all the fairies giggle. The flagstones were always the same cool creamy marble and Ron found them quite hypnotic after what felt like hours of staring at them.

   Fatigue was setting in now. The adrenalin was dissipating from his system and he was finding it harder and harder to walk. He had to concentrate on not tripping over his own trainers and keeping his eyelids from drooping. “I spy,” he said in the most energetic voice he could muster (a little more than dull). “With my little eye, something beginning with-”

   “Water!” cried A.J. making Ron frown.

   “I was gonna go with ‘S’ for ‘Stone’ but whatever.”

   “No,” said Abbey, shaking his arm to make him look up. “Look!”

   Ron frowned as he lifted his heavy gaze from the floor to the pathway in front of them. Ten feet ahead their way was blocked by a waterfall as high as the hedge, cascading down and churning onto the flagstone where it apparently disappeared. The water was azure, like a tropical sea, and rushing so fast it was impossible to see into it. The trio walked up to it and stopped.

   “Should we go back?” asked A.J. nervously inspecting the obstacle. Abbey touched the edge of the fall with her fingertips, then extended her hand inwards.

   “Yes!” cried one of the fairies. “This isn’t the way! Turn around!”

   “Ohh,” said another blue one. “Bad things in there, come with us, we have cookies!”

   “It’s horrible and cold,” shouted yet another. “Best try another way!”

   Ron looked around, waiting for them to disagree with each other. None of them did.

   “Hmm,” said Abbey, pulling out her hand again and shaking the cold droplets off. She took a good look at the colourful horde above their heads. “There’s not been anything like this until now, and they don’t want us to go this way – I think maybe we should go through.”

   “What if this is the way out,” cried Ron excitedly. He looked nervously over his shoulder, thinking about Bellatrix. He was amazed she hadn’t caught up with them already; she was probably blasting holes in the maze to get through.

   “Do we just...walk through then?” asked A.J. dubiously. “How do we know how far back it goes?”

   “Forever!” shrieked a silver fairy, grabbing his t-shirt dramatically. “It’ll kill you!”

   “We don’t,” said Ron, ignoring her. “But I’m with Abbey, I think this is the way, and I’ll go first.”

   “You will?” said Abbey, which Ron thought was a little rude.

   “Yes,” he told her. “You went first on the swinging hammers of death, I’ll go first on this.”

   “How will we know you’re through?” asked A.J. “You can’t really shout like on the last one.” They thought a while, Ron looking back down the path again. This was silly, he should just go. The fairies shouted at them to turn around.

   “How ‘bout you shine a bright light or somethin’?” suggested Abbey. Ron was about to ask her what if it wasn’t a straight path through, or it went down or something, but he decided to address that if it happened and get moving now instead. After their underwater saga at the Ministry last week, he had badgered Hermione to teach him a descent Bubble Charm, and he had never felt the timeliness of learning a spell more in his life. Once sure that the dome around his head was secure, he nodded at the other two, and stepped in under the cool running water.

   His feet still walked along the flagstones as if gravity was pulling him down, but as soon as he was fully submerged his movements became slow and his clothes floated out and away from his body. The water was cold but it was actually quite refreshing, easing the pain in his head even more. There was a luminescent glow coming from the hedges that still lined the pathway, and if he looked upwards it was still black just like before. The water extended on in front of him so far he couldn’t accurately tell where it ended, and that made him nervous.

   He walked as fast as he could, unsettled by the way his feet stuck to the ground when he forced them there. The rest of the time, between steps, they wanted to float off like the rest of his body. The bubble head let him have an almost unmarred view of the underwater world, and soon he spotted seaweed growing from in between the stones, then little fish swimming this way and that. Crabs scuttled along and a seahorse colony clung the leaves on the hedge. The further he went the bigger the fish got, and the hedges were no longer just leaves, but covered in all kind of aquatic flora. Coral mixed in with the seaweed and pebbles littered the floor, making it so Ron had to now pick his path carefully.

   Something pink flicked out of the corner of his eye, and Ron spun as fast as he could to look but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Had the fairies followed him underwater? It didn’t look like it. His heart rate quickened, he gripped his useless wand and tried his best to run ahead; he had been sure that there was more to getting through this lagoon than overcoming a fear of getting wet. Something else flickered pink but he didn’t stop to look, he just kept running. It was like being stuck in a bad dream; no matter how hard he ran, he was still essentially swimming. His breathing in the bubble was the only sound he could hear as all else was muffled by the water. “Keep going,” he whispered but it resonated and sounded much louder to him. “Not much further.”

   And he was right. There in the distance was obviously another waterfall, mostly hidden by all the plant life, but it was definitely there. He ran, his toes barely keeping him on the ground, fighting through the greenery. Just as he reached the water’s edge he felt something tug at his ankle, but he flung himself through without pause for thought, tumbling and shuddering onto the cold marble stones on the other side. His bubble burst and he gasped for breath, even though he hadn’t been holding it, it was just nice to breathe fresh air and not the artificial stuff from the charm. He inspected his ankle and gulped as he saw several faint red sucker marks starting to well up. Whatever that had been he had no way to warn the others. All he could do was aim the brightest light he could muster and hope it reached all the way along the thankfully straight passageway.

   After he fired a spell at himself to dry off the cold water from his clothes and skin, he turned to look around where he had landed. It was a large cluttered room, dark and shadowy save for the same sourceless light blue glow they’d seen in the maze. The floors and walls were stone, and so was the ceiling as far as he could tell. Wooden beams crossed under the dome of the roof and the occasional bat swooped back and forth, the air in their wings echoing in the eerie silence of the hall.

   Built up from where he was stood dozens and dozens of mirrors, maybe even hundreds, of all different sizes. The were all arranged in a jumble, but Ron was able to start walking among them, like little pathways had been made to inspect them. There were big ones and small ones, ones that stood on bearlike feet and ones that were hardly more than compacts. Some had ornate gold frames, others looked like they’d been pulled off of public toilet walls.

   Ever so slightly, and only for a second, the water behind the fall lit up. Ron frowned – why would there be a light this way? Was it Abbey? He eyed the water uneasily for a minute or two but nothing else happened. He coughed and flexed his tired shoulders; it was very cold in the room, even though he’d dried off all the water from the passageway. His breath came out in puffs of smoke and he rubbed his hands together, never for a moment letting go of his wand. That light was probably nothing, he reasoned.

   “Come here,” a voice whispered, making Ron jump out of his skin. He spun round, looking for whoever had spoken, but he couldn’t see anyone.

   “Who’s there?” he demanded, gripping even tighter onto his wand. There was a laugh, a low pitched giggle, and Ron spun round again ready the smack any fairy he saw right out of the air. “Who’s there!” he shouted, louder this time.

   “Come here, Ron,” breathed the voice, making him shiver.

   “How do you know my name?”

   His eyes darted over the various mirrors, all the ones near him holding his reflection. They looked just as panicked as he felt.

   Except one. Ron steadied his breathing as he spotted a mirror where he could see himself, but like the mirrors at the Burrow the image it held was not just a reflection. The mirror Ron grinned but it didn’t meet his dark blue eyes. “Come here,” he said enticingly beckoning with a finger. Ron crossed his arms and felt almost relieved – he was used to items of furniture trying to trick him into things after a lifetime of living with Fred and George.

   “I don’t think so mate,” he said and walked quickly away. Some of the other reflections nodded in approval. One told him to change his shirt. Another was whistling ‘Fly Me To The Moon.’

   With a splutter and a crash the form of A.J. flew through the waterfall barrier and landed on the floor. He looked around for Ron, who ran over to him as he started pointing desperately at the bubble on his head. With a pop Ron undid the charm and A.J. panted and shook on the ground. “You okay?” Ron asked hesitantly, patting his back.

   “I’ve had better experiences,” he admitted.

   With a flick of his wand Ron removed all the water from about A.J.’s person and helped him to stand. “Yeah – not really my idea of fun,” he agreed whilst blasting the beam down through the water again. A.J. nodded and coughed.

   “Don’t like swimming at the best of times,” he said looking around. “What the Hell is this place?”

   Ron shrugged. “Dunno. There’s just a bunch of mirrors, some bats, and from what I can see no doors.”

   “What’s the task then?” asked A.J. “I can’t see what challenge we’d have to do?”

   Ron watched the other boy as he walked around the small patio area just in front of the waterfall. He held his hands out slightly in front of his body, not getting to close to anything, enjoying his space and air.

   Ron shrugged again and rubbed the back of his neck. “I can’t see a task either,” he admitted. “Some of the mirrors talk, but I don’t think they’re that helpful.”

   “I’m not even surprised anymore,” said A.J. shaking his head. “Talking mirrors,” he added under his breath.

   “There was another light just now,” said Ron, thinking out loud. “Before you came through.”

   A.J. stopped pacing. “Yeah, the water all lit up when I was walking through.” He looked at Ron. “I thought maybe it was you?” Ron shook his head and tried to ignore the nervous sensation in his belly.

   “Maybe Abbey just got tired of waiting – after I got through okay, maybe she thought she could just go right in after you?”

   “Hmm,” murmured A.J. frowning at the waterfall. “The light was quite a while ago – shouldn’t she be through by now?”

   Ron didn’t like the sound of this. “Hey – you see any pink tentacle like things when you were coming through?” A.J. stared at him.

   “What?”

   “I didn’t really see it,” admitted Ron feeling a bit foolish. “But there were these pink things, then something grabbed a hold of my ankle just as I got out.” He lifted up his jeans and showed A.J. the red sucker marks. His eyebrows shot off towards his hairline.

   “There’s a monster in there?” he asked, his voice slightly choked.

   “Yeah,” said Ron slowly. “Hey – you think I should have a look a see if Abbey’s okay?”

   “You think!” cried A.J. “Who knows what that is? She said you can’t use magic underwater, she’s defenceless!” Ron very much wanted to point out just how defenceless he would be also, and that A.J. could equally go himself, but he didn’t. A.J.’s infectious sense of chivalry goaded him to reapply the bubble charm, and with a deep breath to steady himself, he stepped back into the water.

   He had to fight back through the densest of the foliage, but soon enough he could see down through the underwater passageway again. There was definitely something moving up ahead, but he couldn’t see what. Once again he attempted the strange underwater sprint as he picked he way between the coral and crustaceans. The closer he got the more purple the form in front became. “Abbey!” Ron yelled out, and then felt stupid realising she wouldn’t be able to hear him.

   The pink limbs were extending out of the hedges, long tentacles with soft round suckers. Ron tried to make his legs move faster as he realised with horror that one of the limbs was round Abbey’s calf, another on her wrist. She caught sight of Ron and screamed out, though it was only a faint sound to him. She beat the beast with her fist as another limb unravelled from the bush and snaked towards her torso. She screamed again in rage and fired Bellatrix’s wand at it, but the spell puffed and died in the water before it even travelled a foot. The tendril whipped around and seized the wand from her hand, sneaking back into the hedge to deposit it before finding its way back out again towards her body.

   Ron finally reached where she was struggling and kicked the approaching tentacle away. He wrapped his fingers around the limb grasping her wrist and prised it off, the suckers visibly pulling at Abbey’s golden skin. With a roar she dove at her leg as soon as her hand was free and yanked at the remaining pink limb on her leg. Ron shoved the other tendrils away as they eagerly reached out for them.

   The one on her leg was not coming off, in fact is was winding even further on. Abbey was getting more and more enraged as she heaved at it and thumped it with her fists. A limb almost found its way round Ron’s arm, he only just noticed it in time to push it away. Abbey was waving to get his attention, still pulling with one hand and gesticulating with the other. He couldn’t work out what she wanted, she kept thrashing back and forth with her hand, so he kicked off the ground and landed over by her. Without pause she grabbed his wand off him, rose it as high as she could, and brought it hurtling down to drive it into the flesh of the pink tentacle. It jerked off as blank ink squirted from the wound, finally releasing Abbey’s leg. It began retracting back into the hedge, along with all the other limbs, and Ron snatched back his wand before it too was lost to the undergrowth.

   Abbey grasped his hand and together they kicked and swam their way back towards the waterfall where A.J. was waiting. They scrambled past the increasing amount of plant life, and eventually tumbled out onto the marble patio area. A.J. ran to support Abbey as the two students popped their bubble charms and gulped down lungfuls of air.

   “She’s comin’,” yelled Abbey pushing A.J. away from her.

   “What, who’s coming?” asked A.J. as he helped Ron off the floor for a second time.

   “Holy Mary Mother o’ God,” snapped the blonde girl, patting herself down looking for wounds. “Who do you think! That ho-bag that’s been on our tails the whole time. She was hollerin’ in the maze, calling out for us an’ bein’ mean. I heard her so I flashed that light to warn y’all and dove on in ‘fore she could see me.”

   She took a deep breath and looked at Ron through her dripping wet hair.

   “Thanks for savin’ me from big, pink and ugly,” she said after a thought.

   “We can’t have long then,” said A.J.

   “We have to get out of here,” said Abbey, but Ron shook his head.

   “I couldn’t see any exits,” he said. “We’re stuck.”

   “And I lost her damn wand,” said Abbey with a curse. “Ron, you’re the only one who can defend us now.”

   “The Hell he is!” snapped A.J. “Abbey, grab a mirror – we’ll stand either side of the waterfall and whoever gets the best shot first, smash it on her head!”

   “Ha!” barked Abigail. “I like you’re thinkin’.” They each grabbed the nearest reasonable sized mirror and moved into position by the walls either side of the churning water. Abbey’s mirror yelled at her that she didn’t want to be smashed, but Abbey just told her to quit yammering. Ron stood, dizzy, bewildered and dripping wet. He didn’t even think to dry himself this time.

   Why did things always happen so fast, he thought slightly panicked as he clutched at his ink stained wand and stared at the exit of the watery depths. What were they thinking? They couldn’t hit one of the most deranged witches alive on the head – she’d have them in a second. It’s down to me, thought Ron as water dripped from his clothes and made little puddles on the floor. I have to defeat Bellatrix Lestrange.

   He shook. His breath fogged up the air in front of his face and his body ached. He was tired, he was ill. He didn’t know what this headache was about but he knew it wasn’t normal.

   Abigail and A.J. fidgeted with the weight of the mirrors in their arms. Ron wanted to tell them to put them down, to hide, but he knew from the short time he’d spent with them they wouldn’t. So would this be how it ends? he couldn’t help but wonder. He’d never see his family again, Harry or Hermione. He’d be snuffed out just like Chris by an evil maniac who wanted to help bring about the end of the world. And Abbey and A.J., they would die for nothing too. He’d dragged them into this because he couldn’t work out how to get home by himself and now they were all going to die.

   He felt a lump rise in his throat. He really wanted to go home.


	10. Farewell To The Fairground (Part Two)

Farewell To The Fairground (Part Two)

 

   Draco gripped his fingers into the rock face as he and Harry made their decent across the sloping, rambling wasteland. The cliff had been acute as they’d first attempted to follow the Rhansyk, but after a little searching they had found a more gradual slope down and had begun scrambling down in earnest.

   Draco liked the physical demands of what they were doing. One wrong move could send him tumbling down the steep mountainside, which was preferable to a long fall but would undoubtedly be painful nonetheless and still had no guarantee he wouldn’t crack his head open. So he filled his thoughts with things like whether the rocks and branches he was reaching for were secure? What direction they were headed? If the Rhansyk had doubled back on them?

   It left very little room to ponder the fact that somehow he and Harry had landed the task of defeating the most evil wizard that ever lived, that there were not one but _two_ of them, and that if they failed it would mean the Voldemorts would be free to keep on tearing up Limbo like they were, almost certainly resulting in all the universes that were attached to it falling apart and undoing existence.

   Oh, and his girlfriend had been stabbed and was probably dying.

   “You okay?” Harry called up to him.

   “Terrific,” replied Draco flatly.

   The sword hanging from his waist caught on yet another tangle of shrubbery, but rather than get frustrated Draco just un-looped it and carried on scrabbling. He knew it was no match for a wand, but in his hands it felt vastly superior. And Godric Gryffindor’s sword had to be one of the most superior ever made, of that he was sure.

   Draco knew his way around a blade, after all those hours he and Blaise had spent sparring at the Manor, and he liked how that took people off guard, often to his advantage. But for his age his magic skills were far below par and his wand felt clumsy in his fingers, often more of a burden than a help.

   Right now, he needed all the help he could get.

   The cliff side was levelling out a little. It was become easier to try and walk rather than climb down using hands as well as feet. “Do you see them?” asked Draco, referring to the two Rhansyk they were following. He felt very exposed on the side of the mountain, but since they’d edged over the top they’d not seen any other sign of life apart from the buzzards flying over head. Draco wondered if they really were buzzards who’d found their way into Limbo, or just part of the construct of the wasteland stretching out in front of them.

   Harry shook his head. “Nothing,” he called back. “I guess we get to the bottom and try and assess which way they went.”

   Draco sighed. “If they really do want to lead us to the Voldemorts,” he said. “They’d probably make it clear enough which direction they’re headed.”

   Harry stopped his decent and looked at Draco. “I know you’re not fond of this plan,” he began, but Draco interrupted him.

   “Hey, who wouldn’t be thrilled to be lead to their gruesome, sticky death?” he said jovially. “We don’t have a choice, I know that. Either we kill the Voldemorts or they kill us. I’m just trying to find a way out of the sticky death part.” He shrugged. “Or at least put it off for as long as possible.”

   Harry managed a weak smile. “Sucks doesn’t it.”

   Draco kicked a stone and watched it slowly tumble down the craggy rocks and dirt. “You’re the hero,” he said. “You’ve done this before. I just mess things up.”

   Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “No you don’t,” he said. “You’ve saved my life a ridiculous amount of times, and you helped bring down your Voldemort as well as mine.”

   Draco just shrugged again. How many good deeds would it take to erase what he did back at the school all those years ago? And no matter how much he repented, nothing could even bring back his mother, or the other Draco’s.

   “Besides,” said Harry, a trace of humour in his voice as he began walking again. “You don’t have a choice, no one else can do this job, so there’s really no point in thinking otherwise.”

   “Yeah,” said Draco following begrudgingly. “But moaning makes me feel better.”

   The terrain was lifeless and grey. Trees tried their best to take root in the crumbling soil, but the results were twisted and leafless. An empty breeze, neither warm nor cold, soundless and without true direction, ruffled the boys hair from time to time. Boulders broke up the landscape, giving it texture and some semblance of shelter, but Draco knew that if anyone were to hide behind one, he and Harry would be very easy targets.

   “I wonder how Hermione is?” he wondered aloud after some time. It was funny how his limbs weren’t aching after all the climbing, but then he was in Limbo. If he didn’t want his muscles to tire, then maybe they wouldn’t?

   As if echoing his thoughts, Harry replied. “Ric said it’s mind over matter,” he said. “And Hermione’s got the strongest mind I know. If she just has to will herself to get better, then she’ll be right as rain in no time.”

   Draco nodded, and tried his hardest to be convinced by Harry’s words. Logically he made sense, but Draco’s worry was a powerful beast. He didn’t bring her up again.

   The buzzards called to each other, a faint, piercing cry that echoed off the dead ground. They were circling Draco and Harry in a most unsettling manner. “Get out of here!” yelled Draco, grabbing a rock and hurtling it up into the sky. It reached a pretty high distance, but the birds scattered long before it got anywhere near them.

   “Draco,” Harry admonished, but he stalked off without paying much attention. He hated this cat and mouse game, he wanted to get to action.

   “If the Rhansyk had wanted us to follow them,” Draco called over his shoulder. “We would have seen them again by now, so we knew we were still on the right path.”

   Harry chewed his cheek. “I know,” he said, and Draco slowed down so he could catch him up. “I’m not sure what they’re up to. I thought they’d be taking us to the Voldemorts so we could duel or whatever it is they want to do, but...”

   “But Voldemort’s a coward,” finished Draco. “And maybe he just wants to get rid of us some other way.”

   Harry looked like he might have been about to agree, but at that moment the strangest noise filled the air, sucking all the pressure from Draco’s ears. A blinding light tore across the sky, and he flung his hand up to shield his eyes.

   “Get down!” yelled Harry, tackling Draco to the ground. They were still on a slope, and the two boys rolled a fair few feet before they found themselves cradled by a nestle of rocks. “Urgh!” grunted Harry as they slammed to a halt.

   “What was that!” cried Draco, cold prickles flurrying over his skin. “A spell?”

   “A bomb,” said Harry grimly. He peered around the rocks, and Draco followed suit. Far off in the distance a cloud was rising against the horizon, it looked like a mushroom with a huge head and a skinny, white hot stalk.

   “That’s a Muggle thing,” said Draco, swallowing on a dry throat. “Isn’t it? You blow each other up with them.”

   Harry glared at the strange cloud, stood up, and brushed himself off. “Not those ones,” he growled, and carried on walking. “We don’t drop those, only two times ever, and never again.”

   “Well,” replied Draco, uncertain as he followed. “At least it didn’t land on our heads.”

   “That’s not-!” snapped Harry, but he stopped himself short, and reigned in his temper. “It doesn’t just explode,” he said tersely, and Draco guessed the bomb must have really scared him. “But seeing as it doesn’t exist, that everything here is just something dreamed up from someone’s imagination, I think you’re right. I choose not to let it affect me.”

   Draco raised an eyebrow. “Okay,” he said. “Sounds good to me I suppose.”

   The boys walked. The ground gradually began to level out, the mountain top easing further away from them, but other than the buzzards there remained no other sign of life.

   “Do you think,” said Draco eventually as they weaved through starved looking trees and shrubs. “It would work again?” He’d been debating with himself whether or not to bring this up.

   The sky was a groggy grey colour, with the kind of light trying to penetrate from behind it that made his eyes wince when he rose them from the ground. It wasn’t exactly bright, but he squinted all the same. Harry did alike. “What?”

   “The spell that protected us,” Draco continued, his voice small. He’d been thinking about this for a while. “From our mums’ dying.”

   Harry considered this for a bit. “It’s why the two Voldemorts are here,” he said eventually. “It’s why we were able to beat the killing curses. So maybe.”

   But Draco shook his head. “It won’t be that easy,” he said softly.

   “But it can’t hurt,” argued Harry.

   Draco didn’t reply. He was a fool if he thought the same trick would work twice, but maybe Harry was right. Perhaps it would at least act as a little good luck charm for them.

   “I think that’s why we have to fight them,” ventured Harry as they followed a trickle of a stream through a thicket of vegetation, no doubt boosted by the unusual occurrence of water.

   “Because we killed them?” questioned Draco. “Yeah, isn’t that what Alex said?”

   Harry shook his head. “But he didn’t say exactly why,” explained Harry. “Maybe because we killed them, because of the sacrifices our mothers made, that’s what he meant about having ‘more power’. Maybe it means we’re more solid to them in this make-believe place.”

   Draco stopped walking. “But are we make-believe?” he asked, looking down at the scar on his right wrist, the one masking where his Dark Mark should have been.   “We’re not misplaced like Hermione, or dead like Seamus. Alex pulled us here – are we in our bodies or our minds?”

   Harry looked a little helpless, and Draco was almost sorry he’d asked. “I think,” said Harry heavily. “If we die, we die. It won’t matter if we’re in our bodies or not, I think there’s no coming back from this.”

   “Unless we kill our Voldemorts for good,” countered Draco, pointing a finger at Harry.

   Harry managed a laugh and picked up his feet again. “Exactly, so nothing to worry about.”

   “How will we tell which is which?” asked Draco, fingering the hilt of Godric’s sword. “I mean what if we’re in the heat of battle, and we blast them out of existence but I’ve got the Dark Lord you were supposed to have and it doesn’t work?”

   Harry tilted his head. “That’s easy,” he said. “My Voldemort is definitely uglier.”

   “Naughty boys,” sang a voice that sent fear flying down Draco’s spine. “Telling lies.”

   He and Harry spun around. He’d not been paying full attention, otherwise he might have noticed they’d been winding through several large boulders. The perfect place for an ambush.

   “I know that voice,” snarled Harry, and Draco was loathed to agree.

   Dark eyes under black curls peeked up from one of the boulders. _“Expulso!”_ cried Harry as Draco twisted on his heels, Godric’s sword raised. Hyenas were scampering over the rocks, tongues lolling as they howled and rolled their eyes. Another head of black curls emerged, and Draco had to blink to believe his eyes.

   “Tut tut,” hissed the first Bellatrix Lestrange as the hyenas circled. “We heard your horrid words.”

   “We did,” said the second Bellatrix, climbing out over the boulder. “Very unkind about our master.”

   “Didn’t I kill you already?” snapped Harry, head jerking between one Bellatrix to the other.

   “Yes,” they both snarled in unison. They were dressed similarly, so you could almost be forgiven for thinking they were twins. But these were the Bellatrixes of Draco and Harry’s worlds, the ones Harry had burnt alive and splattered respectively.

   Draco had loathed his Aunt Bellatrix, and was genuinely grateful to Harry for putting her out of her misery. He wasn’t surprised now to see them covered in thick black stitches, their clothes melding into their skin. One of the Bellatrixes was burnt, her charred flesh blurring even more seamlessly into the fabric of her clothes. The other wore a emerald necklace set in dark metal that Draco remembered from his childhood, but now it was latched onto her collar bones, growing out from her skin like crystals in a decrepit cave. Both distorted versions of his aunt scaled the large boulders and the hyenas yelped and danced around he and Harry.

   They weren’t alone Draco realised with a sickening lurch. More Rhansyk were creeping out from behind the boulder cluster. Mostly men, from all kinds of time periods Draco figured, were closing in on them. Harry and he spun around, wand and sword raised.

   “This is not good,” Draco rasped, his heart pounding.

   “I noticed,” Harry said back as the Bellatrixes cackled.

   One Rhansyk looked like a soldier, or a pilot maybe, Draco didn’t know the Muggle uniforms. But his stitched up skin was a sickening green colour, and he had bits of shrapnel protruding from his flesh and clothes. He had thick brown hair and sculpted muscles, and had probably been very handsome in real life. He smiled a dazzling grin at the boys and waved, then looked over at the mushroom cloud, like he was proud.

   Suddenly Draco didn’t feel so great.

   “Baby Potter,” cooed the Bellatrix with the necklace. The hyenas wagged their stumpy tails and snapped at Draco’s heels. “Made a friend.” She fixed her red eyes on Draco, hatred blazing from them. “Mummy will be upset with him.”

   “Mummy’s dead,” retorted Draco, mimicking her tone. He was trying to keep his fear and anger alive, but as the pilot drew near all he could feel was nausea. What was that mushroom cloud doing to him? To them, by the looks of Harry as he swayed on the spot. “Voldemort killed your sister,” Draco pushed on. They were surrounded by Rhansyk and wild dogs, circling them, taunting them. Why didn’t they just attack? “Your master killed her and didn’t care.”

   He was hoping to get a rise out of her, but both the Bellatrixes giggled. “Sissy made bad choices,” said the burnt one, the one from his world. “Just like her son.”

   The hyenas leapt without warning, howling and frothing at the mouth. Draco swung at the first one with Godric’s sword, but then another came, and another. The pilot grabbed him by the shoulders and flung him to the ground, making him cry out as he bit his lip and inhaled dry soil. Mind over matter, he tried to tell himself, but the blood on his chin and the pain in his mouth made his body feel very real indeed.

   He scrambled to his feet as Harry blasted back dogs and men. The pilot grabbed Draco by the throat, his skin burning where it made contact with his, like it was acid, and without meaning to he dropped the sword. Draco gagged and kicked out as the pilot smirked and hoisted him off his feet.

   “Dance dance!” cried one of the Bellatrixes gleefully, clapping her hands and hopping from one foot to the other. Draco lashed out with his feet and tried to prise the pilot’s fingers off his neck, but he was squeezing harder and harder. He flailed, his hand trying to wrap around his wand tucked into the back of jeans, but even if he could reach it he wouldn’t have been able to speak any incantations. His throat was of fire, inside and out, the Rhansyk was winning. He knew it, and he grinned his movie star smile.

   So Draco did the only thing he could think of; abandoned trying to remove the Rhansyk’s fingers from his neck, and dug his thumbs into his eyes instead.

   The pilot screamed as his red eyeballs exploded like water balloons and dropped Draco in a flash, cradling his face. Draco kicked away a rabid hyena as it leapt for him, and scooped up Godric’s sword again. Without hesitating he jammed it into the pilot’s gut, and ripped upwards, tearing the Rhansyk’s cloth-like flesh in a flurry of dust, blood and bone.

   As soon as what was left of the body hit the floor Draco felt a wave of fresh energy roll over him, and in a glance he realised the mushroom cloud was gone.

   “No!” shrieked one of the Bellatrix’s, and the hyenas seemed to hear her. Within seconds Draco had three charging at him, snarling and jaw’s snapping. A grubby looking Rhansyk in a brown tunic and cloth cap ran for him too, red eyes watery and long fingernails swiping. Draco took only a moment to inhale and set his feet, before lunging with the sword.

   One, two, he bounced with his feet, lashing out with the blade balanced in long arches. Sweat ran in his eyes as he spun and hit one wild dog, then the next. The Rhansyk ducked and tackled him to the ground, but this time Draco kept his grip on the hilt and thrashed out, carving into the peasant man’s arm, almost severing it entirely.

   “Draco!” yelled Harry, gabbing his attention as the Rhansyk howled and rolled away. “We need to go!” He was running towards him, and even though several hyenas and Rhansyk were scattered on the floor, several more were still up and chasing him. Draco turned and plunged his sword into the peasant’s throat, but the third hyena that had been snapping at him took the moment of distraction to sink his teeth into Draco’s thigh.

   Draco screamed but the beast was blasted off him within a second by a jet of green light. _“Episkey!”_ cried Harry as he reached Draco, not even pausing in his stride. “Come on!” Draco’s leg was still sore, but thanks to the healing spell he was able to scramble to his feet with the sword, and run.

   They tore out of the boulders back into the wasteland, the Bellatrixes, hyenas and remaining Rhansyk still on their heels.

   “There!” cried Draco, pointing to a line of green not too far to their right. It looked like a jungle but whatever it was, he knew it would give them cover.

   Harry fired spells wildly over his shoulder as they ran, trying to keep their pursuers at bay as they sprinted for the trees.

   “Come on,” urged Draco as his legs, so accustomed to running for hours on end, edged him ahead of Harry despite the healing hyena bite. “Come on, don’t lose me, keep up!”

   “I’m...” puffed Harry. “Trying! _Reducto!”_

   The ground exploded behind them, knocking several of the Rhansyk and hyenas off their feet. The Bellatrixes were still chasing strong, and they looked incensed.

   “Come BACK!” wailed the burnt one desperately.

   Draco managed a laugh. “Yeah okay,” he said to himself as the jungle loomed. The hyena’s were gaining and one of the Bellatrixes fired a spell that flew dangerously close to his head. He glanced over his shoulder to check Harry was right behind.

   A spell hit him in the back, and Draco shot of his feet, electricity searing through his body. “NO!” bellowed Harry, running to him as he hit back down on the dry, cracked soil. Fresh blood exploded in his mouth as he rolled, his limbs still alive with pain from whatever curse Bellatrix had used. “Come on,” he cried in between shooting back at the mob behind. “Get up, keep running!”

   Draco realised the sword wasn’t in his hand again, but he decided not to waste time anymore and grabbed his wand. _“Crucio!”_ he gasped, throwing everything he could into the unforgivable curse. He’d sworn to himself he’d never use it, but he figured it was okay on imaginary creatures that were trying to eat him.

   What remained of the hyenas buckled and began writhing around on the floor, but the Rhansyk weren’t far behind and the Bellatrixes were still spell casting.

   “Go!” urged Harry, hauling Draco and his sword off the floor, and the two of them ran Hell for leather the last ten feet or so and into the jungle.

   _“No!”_ screamed the Bellatrixes, but Harry didn’t let up, and with his hand clasped around Draco’s arm, neither did he. It was only after they’d been running a minute or so between the trees Draco dragged them to a halt.

   “Wait,” he said. “Wait, wait – look.” He nodded back through the trees as he took his sword back, and Harry followed his gaze.

   “Where’d they go?” he asked, confused.

   “I don’t think they’re following,” said Draco, taking deep breaths in and out. The air was suffocating. “That’s why they were so upset.”

   Harry frowned at him, his glasses already steaming up. “What, you think they can’t?” he asked, taking them off and performing a water repelling charm.

   “Or don’t want to.”

   Harry raised his eyebrows and slipped his glasses back over his nose. “Right then,” he said sombrely. “I guess we should get moving then.”

   Draco agreed, and began traipsing through the undergrowth. It was crawling with brightly coloured insects, snakes that wound themselves around tree trunks and howler monkeys hanging from branches, watching the boys go past with interest.

   Draco wasn’t sure what spell he’d been hit with, but his muscles were all still aching, and the remnants of the hyena bite throbbed in the heat. He rubbed his chin, and wasn’t surprised when drying blood came off on his fingers.

   “You okay?” he called back to Harry as he fanned his shirt away from his chest.

   Harry coughed and sighed. “Sort of feel like I’ve gone swimming, but not bad really.” He too had blood on his right arm and faint, pink lines where Draco guessed he’d healed himself from a hyena scratch as well.

   The jungle was eerily quiet, and Draco’s thoughts churned over in his head as to why the Bellatrixes and their hoard hadn’t followed. He couldn’t think that it was because they were scared; he’d known his aunt his whole life, and she was bold to the point of recklessness. Maybe Harry was right, in that something was physically stopping them from coming in. But what?

   Movement up above caught Draco’s eye, but all he could see were leaves and vines. “I think,” he said softly, his eyes flicking from left to right. “We’re being watched.” He felt Harry stiffen, but they kept walking.

   “Rhansyk?” he asked. Draco shook his head. He wasn’t sure, but he could feel eyes on them, patient eyes. Eyes that belonged to something that wasn’t afraid.

   A huge black shape dove out of the undergrowth, snarling and roaring. Harry and Draco cried out and jumped aside as the panther landed between them, skidded and turned to face them, tail twitching and switching. Its eyes were entirely green, almost like light was shining out of them. It began stalking towards them, dropping low, ready to pounce.

   “Get ready to run,” murmured Harry.

   The panther leapt.

   _“NOW!”_ he yelled, and fired at the cat. _“Stupefy!”_ the spell his the panther, stunning it and knocking it unconscious.

   Draco blazed through the trees, slashing a clearer path with Gryffindor’s sword, Harry right behind him. “Was that thing possessed?” he asked, hacking through some beautiful flowers who’s petals fluttered to the jungle floor like confetti.

   “Don’t know, don’t care,” cried Harry. “I’m just hoping he didn’t have any frien- _aagh!”_

   The world turned upside down around them as a huge net made of thick rope jerked up from under the litter on the jungle floor, and catapulted Draco and Harry ten feet in the air.

   Draco somehow managed to keep Godric’s sword upright so it didn’t impale them and took a moment to catch his breath. “Another net,” he said, thinking back to the underground trials in Germany, when Harry’s quick thinking had saved them from being impaled on some nasty spikes.

   “Yeah,” agreed Harry, wriggling to try and look underneath them. “But who put this one here?” They swung in their trap, the jungle undulating below them.

   “I’m not sure I want to find out,” replied Draco.

   Harry nodded in agreement. “You cut the rope,” he said, indicating Godric’s sword. “I’ll levitate us to the ground.”

   “Ha-rry Pott-ah,” rasped a voice, and Draco’s blood turned to ice.

   “Who’s there?” cried Harry, twisting and turning, but the way they were stuck neither of them could see a thing.

   “Who cares,” hissed Draco. “Get us down, now!”

   “Right,” said Harry, flustered. _“Mobilicorpus!”_

   Nothing happened. Draco looked around, confused. “Aren’t we supposed to levitate?”

   “I know I know!” snapped Harry, panicked. _“Mobilicorpus, mobilicorpus!”_ Again nothing happened, he might as well not have been holding a wand.

   “No magic for you Ha-rry Pott-ah,” hissed the voice again, and Draco twisted to see a woman emerging from the foliage, creeping like a wild animal. She was dressed in scraps of clothing and stitched together like all the other Rhansyk had been. Most of her face was painted like a white skull missing its jaw bone; her dreadlocks were decorated with white rings and her bare arms and legs had white hand prints on.

   “You!” yelled Harry in anger. “What have you done to me!”

   “You know her?” said Draco, confused. If he cut the ropes now they would seriously hurt themselves falling that far. Why didn’t the spell work?

   “From the mountain,” growled Harry. “She wanted me to follow her.”

   The woman laughed. “Dray-co,” she said, her thick Caribbean accent extending his name. “Dray-co Mal-foy, me a come an me a snatch de boys, snatch em in me trap, snap snap!”

   “Uh oh,” said Harry.

   “You’re damn right uh oh,” snapped Draco. “How has she stopped you from doing the spell?”

   “Try your wand,” said Harry, but Draco had just as much luck as he had done. He was used to spells not always working for him, but this was such an empty, useless feeling it filled him with dread.

   “What have you done to us!” he shouted down at her, but the woman just laughed. He shoved his wand back in his pocket and looked around for a more practical solution, but that was when he realised the woman was not alone. A hoard of girls were slinking from behind the leaves like a disturbed nest of spiders, climbing up trees and crawling along the ground on their feet and hands. They all seemed to be holding things, but from their position trapped in the net Draco couldn’t make out what.

   The woman squatted below them, bobbing on her knees in what seemed like excitement. They were all muttering in low voices over one another, so Draco couldn’t discern a single word.

   “I think,” he said, his voice tight in his throat. “She’s a voodoo priestess.”

   “What?” said Harry. “You mean like voodoo dolls, with needles and stuff?”

   “That was part of it,” said Draco, trying to remember what he’d learned from his lessons with Severus. “They’d charm dolls to match real people, so they’d feel pain and stuff. But mostly they were just very dark wizards and witches. Didn’t believe in wands really, it was all potion based. The Ministry did their best to eradicate their practices, but…”

   “But that doesn’t matter,” said Harry, watching as the girls brought whatever they were carrying over to the priestess. They were all dressed in the same rags and bone jewellery as her, but had no stitching; she was the only Rhansyk. “If she’s an evil witch that means she’s somehow cursed us so we can’t use magic, and now it looks like she’s going to do something else.”

   The girls was setting up a circle of fat, red candles around the priestess. She now sat cross-legged in the centre as they scattered bones, black feathers, scraps of paper and a number of other strange items in the circle. The priestess swayed with her arms held out, chanting as the smallest girl of them all began working her way around the circle, lighting the candles one by one with a long, skinny black one.

   “Harry,” said Draco urgently. “Their curses were twisted, horrible things, what they did to Muggles and magic people alike, it was unbelievable.”

   “We need to get out of here,” said Harry, and Draco couldn’t agree more. If she was preparing to do some of the things he’d read about, he did not want to be anywhere near her.

   He looked around desperately. “Swing!” he said, grabbing a bit of rope in each hand. “Swing the net!” He leant his body forwards, then backwards, again and again. Harry quickly caught on and began to mimic him. The net suspended from the trees started picking up momentum, swaying on the tree branches it was hanging from and shaking out dozens of leaves.

   The girls began to shriek and shout, and it wasn’t long before Draco felt something hit him from the jungle floor below. The priestess’ followers were throwing anything they could find that hadn’t been used to set up the spell, from empty bottles to tree branches and rocks. “Ow,” said Harry.

   “Keep swinging!” cried Draco. The trees were all reasonably close together, and he was already in reach of a strong looking specimen. “Just a little further.” He stretched out with his free hand, reaching for the nearest adjacent tree to grab onto.

   Harry threw all his body weight backwards, then forwards, giving them that little bit more momentum. Draco’s hand wrapped around a twisted bit of bark, but their weight and the weight of the net pulled them back again.

   “Harry!” he cried as they swung back again, more debris hitting them from below as the girls’ screams got louder. Harry threw himself forward at the net reached the tree again, and between them the boys managed to grab hold.

   “Cut us out!” yelled Harry, but Draco was already angling himself with Ric’s sword raised.

   The priestess’ chanting was becoming louder, and at least half the girls had abandoned catapulting objects at the boys to join in with her, humming to accompany her droning, alien words.

   “Hurry up,” said Harry as Draco slashed at the ropes above their heads.

   “I know,” said Draco tersely. Chop, chop, chop. Rope frayed and bark splintered, and still the woman below swayed and chanted.   “Watch out!”

   Draco gave one final thwack of Ric’s sword, and suddenly the net released them. He grunted and hugged the tree, Harry by his side, their legs flailing, their bodies slipping. Like a mouth opening wide, the net swung away from them to hang limply in the middle of the pathway again, and the girls screamed and wailed in anger.

   “Great,” said Draco, sweat pouring down his face as he re-sheathed the sword and grabbed the tree trunk with both hands. “Now what?”

   A strange smell hit his nose, and he jerked his head down to the forest floor. The girls who hadn’t joined in with the humming yet looked pretty pleased with themselves, because they’d set the tree they were hanging from on fire.

   Draco swore, and looked around frantically for an escape. Harry slipped further down the knotted bark, his trainers unable to get a proper grip on his side of the tree. “We have to move,” he said, “that’ll be on us in no time.”

   Draco didn’t fancy being burned alive, but he could already feel the heat coming from the flames. He sized up the nearest trees. Something shiny caught his eye several meters away on the jungle floor, but he didn’t have the time to wonder what it was. “Jump!” he said to Harry, jutting his chin at the most likely one for him, then angled his body to launch at the one by himself.

   He coiled the energy in his legs and sprang, grabbing the fresh bark with his fingertips and slamming his feet down. But Godric’s sword snagged on a vine, catapulting him off target and ripping his hands off the tree.

   _“Draco!”_ he heard Harry bellow as he tumbled down, hitting tree branches as he snatched desperately for anything his could find purchase on. The sky and the ground swung over and below with sickening speed, but suddenly his hand wrapped around a branch and he wrenched to a halt, his whole body bouncing only a few feet from the ground as the branch bowed under his weight.

   With a heartfelt grunt he dropped himself to the ground, still dizzy from the fall, but the voodoo girls were already converging on him, malice in their eyes and makeshift weapons in their hands. They snarled and brandished bits of flint on sticks and ropes with rocks tied to the end.

   “Whoa,” said Draco, holding up his hands and stumbling back into the tree he’d just fallen down. “Wait a minute, let’s just-”

   But the first girl lashed out with her rope, causing Draco to duck aside. The priestess was still chanting, and the tree they’d lit on fire was roaring and spitting out embers. It would only be a matter of minutes before the whole jungle caught alight.

   Draco really didn’t want to fight a bunch of girls, but they really wanted to fight him as they rushed forwards, screeching. He took a deep breath, reminded himself that this was Limbo and it was only as real as he wanted it to be, and unsheathed the Sword of Gryffindor.

   The girls all stopped, stunned, the whites of their eyes huge as the light bounced off the blade, shinning on their faces.

   And then they bolted. In a flurry of limbs they vanished behind leaves and branches, and all that was left was the remnants of the spell they had brought with them. That, and their priestess.

   She was so deep in her trance though, Draco wasn’t even sure she had noticed. He didn’t stop to ponder it though, and with a roar he raced over to the priestess, ready to separate her head form her body. He vaulted over the candles, swung the blade around and threw all his weight behind the blow.

   Unfortunately, all he hit was some kind of invisible barrier around the witch, and he ricocheted so violently off this he went flaying backwards into hot wax, sharp bones and slippery entrails.

   This did, however, succeed in getting the priestess’ attention. Her head snapped up and her red eyes fixed on Draco, a snarl curling her lip upwards.

   “Draco!” called Harry from half way down his tree. “You messed up her spell, kick some more things around!”

   The Rhansyk bared her rotten teeth at him like an animal, but Draco was more scared of what she could do with her ingredients rather than her bare hands. He propped himself up on his elbows, and flicked a red candle over with his finger.

   “Whoops,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

   The priestess bound to her dry and cracked feet, but instead of attacking Draco or reaching for her disturbed ingredients, she began loping around the circle picking up items that had already been in use, as well as ones the girls had left lying around.

   “Oi!” said Draco, trying to get her attention as he scrambled up and threw about some more of her ingredients. “Over here!” But she just laughed.

   “You no touch me,” she cried in a sing-song voice, bobbing back and forth as she grabbed a handful of feathers. “Me a twist and crack dem bones.” She wagged her finger at the him, edging backwards on bent legs. “Den me catch sum girls, crack dem bones an make a pot oh eats um um.” She licked her lips and Draco almost felt sorry for the girls that had abandoned her.

   Her eyes glowed red as she took another step backwards, then picked up some chicken feet from the ground.

   “She’s doing another spell,” Harry said, finally dropping down from his tree and skirting around the raging fire. “We have to stop her.”

   “But we can’t do magic,” said Draco, frustrated. “So we can’t get past the shield.”

   “Why can’t we do magic?” countered Harry angrily. “I’ve never heard of such a thing, how is she blocking us?”

   The priestess was determinedly ignoring them, slowly hunting through her wrecked ingredients, picking up this and that as she chanted.

Harry’s eyes suddenly widened, and he turned his back to her to lean into Draco. “She has to set up all that stuff to do her magic, right?” he hissed urgently.

   “Yeah,” Draco whispered back with a nod. “She has to set up like a shrine…” He trailed off as his eyes lit up.

   “We have to find it,” said Harry, but Draco was already shaking his head.

   “I saw it,” he whispered, not believing his luck. “At least I think so, I saw something shiny, in the undergrowth.”

   Harry glanced at the chanting witch. “Go,” he breathed. “I’ll hold her off.”

   “Good luck,” said Draco, and without another look at her, raced in the direction he really hoped he’d seen the light reflecting from the jungle floor.

   “You run boy!” heckled the priestess. “Me a catch you, you no hide!”

   He ignored her as Harry started shouting back, and, from the sounds of it, throwing things about. The last thing Draco made out as he disappeared into the trees was her screeching at him to give something back.

   He tried to remember what direction he’d been looking in from the top of his tree, and how far out he needed to run, but with another half a dozen trees caught alight now it was making it very difficult to see. He stumbled between trees as lemurs ran squawking from the fires, coughing and rubbing smoke from his eyes. He slashed at the greenery with Godric’s sword, but it wasn’t long before he realised he must have gone too far and doubled back. He thought he could hear some kind of shouting but the fire and dense foliage was muffling anything it might have been, making it incomprehensible.

   “Come on,” he willed, panic rising in his throat. Every second he wasted Harry was in danger, and he himself if she completed that spell. Every shimmering drop of condensation reflecting off of leaves and petals caught his eye, and with every false alarm his frustration grew.

   He yanked several large leaves aside, and ran straight into Harry.

   “Whoa!” he cried, jumping away from the sword.

   “Where is she?” Draco replied, lowering the blade and looking frantically around.

   Harry smiled. “No idea,” he said, shot out his hand with inhuman strength, grabbed Draco’s throat and kicked Godric’s sword out of his hand.

   Draco gagged in shock, clawing at Harry’s fingers. “Harry!” he managed to gurgle, barely able to breathe. “Let go!”

   The sound of laughter rumbled in his ear. “He be mine now,” gloated the priestess dropping from a tree. She waved a crude doll made from twigs at Draco as he spluttered and gasped, but even as his vision began to blur, he could see the tiny red bolt of lightning on the doll’s head.

   She’d cast some sort of Imperius Curse, and was controlling Harry like a puppet on a string. “Harry!” Draco grunted, feeling sick. He pounded on his friend’s arms. “Fight it!”

   They locked eyes as the priestess swung from a branch, enjoying watching Draco choke to death. “Har-ry Pott-ah no hear you,” she sang. “He listen only to me now, yesum.”

   Draco was throwing all his strength into prying Harry’s fingers from his gullet, but even so breathing was frighteningly difficult. “Harry,” he rasped again. “Harry it’s Draco, I’m your friend, you don’t want to do this.”

   “Oh ho,” laughed the priestess, twisting upside down on her tree branch and patting the voodoo doll’s head. “But me do, me like watch you suffer, _human.”_

   Draco was finding it harder to fight the dizziness off. “No,” he whimpered. “You’ve fought this before, you can’t let her control you.”

   Harry blinked.

   “Harry?” Draco wiggled as his friend’s face rearranged into confusion and then horror. Draco strained against his fingers again.

   “I can’t stop it!” cried Harry as his fingers squeezed down. He may have got his mind and speech back, but his body was still very much in control of the priestess. “Draco, I can’t,” he panicked. “You have to fight back!”

   “No boy!” snapped the priestess, banging the doll on the head and making Harry flinch. “No listen to him, listen to me!”

   Draco grappled weakly with his failing arms, but Harry shook his head.

   “Kick me!” he yelled, as the priestess growled and dropped back to the ground. Draco summoned every bit of energy he had left and channelled it into his trainer, bringing it down on Harry’s foot, his heel driving into his toes with a painful crunch.

   Draco felt horribly guilty as his friend went bug-eyed and choked out a guttural moan, but his fingers loosened ever so slightly, and Draco wrenched himself free, shoving Harry to the floor.

   “NO!” screamed the priestess as he stumbled away and Harry shook on the ground, unable to control his arms enough to reach his foot to hold, but it was clear he was in pain. The Rhansyk launched at Draco, clawing with talon-like nails and biting with her rotten teeth, but her shield just slammed into Draco with unnatural power, sending him flying into something heavy that toppled over and rained all over him as he hit the jungle floor. He was too stunned for a second to realise he was covered in blood, bones, crushed up leaves and more than a few eyeballs.

   The priestess looked horrified at her destroyed voodoo shrine, but Draco found his face lighting up with delight.

   He seized his wand from his pocket, the warmth of the spell in his fingers before the word even left his mouth.

   _“Expulso!”_ he bellowed.

   The spell hit the shield around the priestess, giving it a lovely pink colour before it exploded like a shattering window. She roared again, scrambling over the ground to grab for Draco. He tripped over himself and the two of them rolled to the floor. He was dizzy and could barely breath after the damage his windpipe had sustained, but adrenaline was pumping through his veins, giving him something left to fight with, and he landed a punch on her face, smearing her white make-up.

   The Rhansyk punched back, but Draco was bigger and managed to roll them over so she was underneath and slammed his fist into her face another couple of times. She wiggled her knees up and kicked him off, slamming him into the dirt, but he spied Godric’s sword, and leapt to his feet to try and reach it. She screamed out, and wasted no time in lunging for a sharp bit of flint to slash at Draco’s face.

   He scrambled away, shoving her and tripping over his own feet. Harry was still immobilised on the floor from the voodoo spell, but Draco couldn’t help him just yet. He seized Godric’s sword from the ground and wield around but he stopped mid-air.

   She had Harry’s voodoo doll back in her hand again, the sharp flint poised at its throat. Draco’s eyes flicked to Harry to see a thin trickle of blood running down his neck from the flint on the doll. She laughed her deep rumble again. “You no win, Dray-co Mal-foy,” she cooed, bobbing up and down again. “Me is gonna guts sum boys and have them for eats.”

   “Is that so?” asked Draco. She didn’t seem to realise his wand was still in his hand.

   _“Accio doll!”_ he shouted, and the twigs went flying from her hand. She wailed with indignation, and dove for him, brandishing the flint.

   It was no match for the Sword of Gryffindor though.

   In one wide swing, Draco hurtled the blade around his body, and took her head clean off her shoulders.

   It bounced along the jungle floor, and he body crumpled in a lumpy heap of gore, dust and stitching. Draco watched it, breathing heavily, and rubbed where Harry’s fingers had made his neck tender and sore. Harry coughed and spluttered, grabbing Draco’s attention again. He dropped to the floor to see if his friend was okay.

   “Harry I’m so sorry,” he said as the other boy curled up in shook. Draco dropped his sword and tried to comfort him, but eventually Harry began to relax of his own accord. “I didn’t know how to stop you?” Draco rasped. “Are you alright now?”

   Harry shook his head. He didn’t seem to be able to talk through his coughing, but he was reaching out, jabbing Draco’s shoulder.

   “What?” asked Draco, trying to take his hand, but Harry pulled it away and jabbed it again. He was pointing.

   “Watch-” he gasped, his eyes wide. “Watch out!”

   Draco twisted on the spot, but he was too late. Something smashed into his face, and his consciousness lost out to black oblivion.

 

***

 

   “Of course they’re Death Eaters,” said Hermione in angry incredulity. She stood and moved into the centre of the pub floor, away from the window. “There’s a horrible scheme going on, why did I think it could possibly be anyone else.”

   “But,” said Terry, following her to stand by the bar. “I thought there weren’t any Death Eaters any more, that they were all arrested after You-Know-Who was killed last year.”

   “If your world is anything like mine,” said Hermione, propping herself up on the bar and fiddling with a beer mat. “A lot of people will have played the Imperius card, pretended to have been coerced into doing what they did to escape Azkaban.”

   Terry swore and took his beanie hat off to wring it out again. The water seemed unnaturally loud as it splattered on the old carpet. “This isn’t good.”

   “They’re definitely controlling the zombie people,” said Sarah, who was still crouched by the window, watching the activity outside.

   “Maybe you should come away from the window?” suggested Hermione, another wave of nausea washing over her and almost taking her vision away.

   “They can’t see me,” replied Sarah defiantly. “And I want to see what’s going on.”

   Hermione was too tired to argue. She turned and rested both her elbows on the bar, dropping her head into her hands. She felt Terry’s hand on her back, and it made her jump.

   “Are you alright?” he asked softly. Hermione took two deep, long breaths before standing up again.

   She wanted to lie, she wanted to say she was fine, but if she was honest she couldn’t remember ever feeling this sick. “No,” she croaked. “No I don’t think I am.”

   Terry wasted no time in grabbing the nearest chair and steering her into it. “Sit,” he instructed, then vaulted over the bar despite there being a perfectly good stable door for him to use.

   He used that route on the way out however, as he was carrying a pint of tap water that he held in front of Hermione’s face. “Drink that,” he instructed, and she took it gratefully. It was the most wonderful thing she’d ever tasted.

   “There’s three of them now,” said Sarah, her gaze still determinedly outside. “I think one of them’s in charge, but they’re all able to keep the zombies away that that shield spell.”

   “Wish we knew that one,” muttered Terry as he ruffled his hair and pulled his hat back on. Hermione shivered; they may have been inside now but her clothes were still cold and wet.

   “You couldn’t,” she said, feeling stupid and helpless not being able to do it herself.

   “Couldn’t what?” asked Terry kindly, turning back to her.

   She shivered again, and hugged herself. “Um, dry me off, if you don’t mind?”

   “Of course,” said Terry in a tone that suggested he was cross with himself for not thinking of that before. _“Tergeo”_ he said, using the spell first on her, then himself, then Sarah. He’d improved since he tried to use it back at the house, and Hermione smiled a little.

   “What makes you think someone’s in charge?” she asked Sarah, who turned around to face her proudly.

   “He keeps shouting, and the others just bowed and ran away from him.”

   “Delightful,” said Terry. “So, here’s the million Galleon question – why have they turned your town into Zombieland?”

   Hermione shook her head then rubbed her temple. “It makes no sense. I mean, the people aren’t really dead, though they will be if they’re left to their own devices. But if that was their goal then why not just kill everyone outright.”

   “And remember the whole Dimensional Leap coincidence,” said Sarah, her nose pressed back up against the window. Without any lights on in the pub she was silhouetted by what little light was coming in from the twilight outside.

   Hermione felt like her brain was full of fog. Sarah was right, there had to be a reason why the Death Eaters had cursed the town like this and it had to be linked to the dimension swapping. But as to what that was, she really had no clue. She felt so angry at her body for letting her down like it was doing, of all the times to get the flu this really was the worst. She rested her head on her arms, and half listened as Sarah and Terry continued theorising.

   “Perhaps it’s like they’ve taken the town hostage,” said Sarah, unsure. “Perhaps they wanted Harry to tell them something about swapping realities.”

   “Hmm,” said Terry, unconvinced. “We haven’t seen anyone until now. Surely if they’d been on the lookout for Harry, they would have pounced on us the second we got to the town square.”

   “Yeah,” sighed Sarah. “I guess you’re right.”

   “Hermione?”

   “Huh?” she raised her head, expecting to see Terry.

   But it was Seamus Finnigan sitting next to her.

   “Seamus!” she cried, stunned, and whipped her head around to see Terry was standing, pensive, and Sarah was still looking out the window. They didn’t seem to have noticed his arrival, and she spun back round. “But, what?”

   Seamus grabbed her hand. His skin was cool, and unlike them he did not look like he’d braved a monsoon to get inside the pub. “It’s okay,” he said hurriedly. “You’re asleep, this was the only way I could talk to you.”

   “But,” said Hermione, blinking and trying to get her thoughts straight. “You’re dead, in this world, aren’t you?”

   “Absolutely,” agreed Seamus, giving her hand a little squeeze. “I haven’t got long, so I can’t explain properly, but I know Sarah told you about a man she met in Limbo, called Alex.”

   Hermione frowned and nodded. “Yes, she said he looked after my universe, like a guardian.”

   “Watcher,” Seamus corrected. “That’s right, and that’s what I am, I’m the Watcher of this world.”

   “Because you’re dead?” Hermione clarified.

   He nodded. “So now I’m in Limbo, with your Harry and the Draco of this world.”

   Hermione looked at him, stunned. “Okay,” she said, trying to process what he was saying, as fast as she could. “And Sarah said they have to stop the world from ending, all the worlds.”

   “Yes,” said Seamus. “But I need your help, you have to-”

   He stopped short, a look of horror dawning on his face. “Hermione,” he said, very carefully. “Hermione where’s your necklace? The one with the key on it, where is it?”

   Hermione’s hand flew to her neck, and realised he was right. The key was gone, but the skin was still sore from the large scratch she had. “Oh no,” she groaned, and looked up at him. “I must have lost it when we went over the fence, I got scratched by a branch or something.”

   Seamus dropped his head onto the table with a loud thud, making her wince. He let out a string of what sounded like Gaelic profanities.

   “Was it important?” she asked tentatively.

   Seamus raised his head. “You know what Sarah said about the Horcrux, the bit of Voldemort’s soul?”

   “Yes,” said Hermione, frowning. Until realisation hit her. “That was it, wasn’t it? The Horcrux is in the necklace?”

   Seamus nodded. “Almost certainly. And you have to destroy it, otherwise Harry will never be able to defeat his Voldemort. It’s powering him over here in Limbo, but if you get rid of it he will be vulnerable.”

   Hermione rubbed the tender scratch. “Sorry,” she said genuinely. “I’m pretty sure I know where it is though.”

   “Okay,” said Seamus, business-like. “Well when you get it, it will take some effort to destroy it.”

   Hermione couldn’t help but look around at her companions, now talking quietly by the window. “In case you hadn’t noticed,” she said, a little exasperated. “We’re sort of in the middle of something here.”

   “Tell me about it,” said Seamus. “But believe me when I tell you that finding and decimating the Horcrux is your top priority.”

   Hermione deflated and leant on her hand. “Fine, so how do we do that?”

   “It has to be beyond magical repair,” said Seamus. “So something like Fiendfyre, Elven Titanium, magical poison.”

   Hermione threw up her hands. “Okay,” she said, “I get the idea.”

   “The quicker you can do it, the better,” said Seamus, deadly serious. “Harry and Draco are already on their way to try and find the Voldemorts, the Horcruxes must be destroyed by the time they engage.

   Hermione felt a heavy coldness settle in her chest. “Right,” she said. “I understand. Have you told Ron this too?”

   Seamus managed a laugh. “Trying to,” he admitted. “He’s not exactly in a position to just have a quick nap either.”

   “But is he okay?” Hermione asked, anxious. She had no idea what kind of reality he’d landed himself in.

   “He’s still alive,” said Seamus sincerely. “Now it’s probably time you woke up and started looking for that necklace.”

   “But-”

   “Hermione,” he interrupted, upset. “I’m sorry but there’s just no time, I promise he and Harry are doing okay and I’m helping them as much as I can.”

   She nodded, disappointed but accepting. “Sure,” she said. “Thanks so much Seamus.”

   “Don’t mention it,” he said, saluting. “Just doing my job.”

   Hermione looked at him sympathetically. “Are you...happy?”

   Seamus considered a moment. “When the whole Multiverse isn’t threatening to fall apart, yeah.” He smiled. “I love it. Now wake up.”

   “Okay,” she laughed.

   Nothing happened.

   “You’re still here?” she said, confused.

   Seamus looked around. “Well you’re still asleep.”

   “How do I wake myself up then?” countered Hermione. “I’ve never had to do this before – this seems real to me.”

Seamus thought for a moment. “I’ve got an idea.” He stood up suddenly.

   “Wha-” Hermione spluttered as he grabbed her shoulders.

   “Goodbye,” he said with a wink. “And good luck.” He shoved Hermione over, so she and her chair went crashing to the floor.

   “Yah!” she screamed as she hit the floor and woke up. Seamus vanished, but Terry and Sarah spun around and ran to her side.

   “Hermione!” cried Sarah, her hands fluttering over her body to check she was okay. Terry tried to sit her upright, but she pushed him away, the nausea finally overcoming her, and she vomited all over the floor.

   “Whoa!” yelped Terry, jumping away from the mess as she heaved again, acid burning the back of her throat.

   “Water,” she gasped, feeling the worst of it was over. Sarah grabbed her half finished glass from the table as Terry used his _Tergeo_ spell to siphon up the sick and dispense of it down the sink behind the bar.

   “Are you okay?” fretted Sarah as Hermione gulped down several mouthfuls of water.

   “Actually,” she said, taking a couple of deep breaths. “I feel much better.”

   “Well that’s one thing,” said Terry cheerfully. “Did you nod off?”

   Hermione sighed, the conversation with Seamus still fresh in her mind. “If only,” she said, then proceeded to repeat everything that he’d told her.

   “Seamus is a Watcher?” asked Sarah.

   “The necklace was the Horcrux the whole time?” moaned Terry.

   Sarah shook her head. “I don’t even remember you having one on?” she admitted to Hermione.

   She touched the scratch again. “I’m almost certain it got torn off when we jumped the fence at your parents’ house.”

   “Damn,” said Terry flatly.

   “So, what do we do?” asked Sarah. “Go back to the house?”

   “I guess so,” said Hermione taking another mouthful of water. “We have to find it, and then we have to find one of those ways to destroy it.”

   “To do which,” said Terry grimly. “We’re going to have to get out of the town, unless your parents have some forks made from Elven Titanium?”

   “I highly doubt it,” said Sarah. She shook her head, then threw her shoulders back. “Okay, I think we have to split up then.”

   “What?” snapped Terry, but she held her hands up.

   “Unless either of you remember your way back to my house, I should go find the necklace, whilst you two try and stop whoever’s casting the zombie spell.”

   “You shouldn’t go alone,” argued Hermione.

   Sarah raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t got a wand and you’re sick as a dog, so you can’t be left alone. I think it’s better you stay with Terry in the town rather than trek through the rain again, and – sorry to be rude – you’ll only slow me down.”

   “But,” said Terry, conflicted. “You’re just a kid.”

   Sarah barked a laugh. “Really? You might want to remind the universe of that at some point then.” She stood up, resolution clear on her face. “As soon as I have it, I’ll come back to the town and find you.”

   “Well,” said Hermione, trying to overrule her guilt at letting a thirteen year old face a hoard of zombies alone with the knowledge that she took down the Wrangler queen and her swarm almost single-handedly. “Hopefully by that time we’ll have broken the curse.”

   Sarah nodded, and without another word scampered over to the front door, and out into the rain.

   Hermione watched the door swing gently shut, then turned to Terry. “Okay then,” she sighed. “So where do we start.”

   “Not that way!” cried Sarah, slamming back through the door, spraying rainwater everywhere. “Back door, back door!”

   Hermione shot to her feet as Sarah raced across the pub and through the door by the bar. Several zombies were stumbling through the front door, moaning and pawing at the air with their hands. Blue sparks jumped from one body to the next as they pushed their way inside.

   _“Run!”_ shouted Terry a little unnecessarily, and he and Hermione tore after Sarah. They hit the door and darted into the kitchen space. Without electricity none of the appliances were on making the room spooky and lifeless. Compared to what Hermione knew was behind them though, it seemed tranquil.

   Sarah hit the back door and stopped to check if the coast was clear, meaning Hermione and Terry could catch up with her. It was hard to tell in the rain and the night time that had now settled, but there didn’t seem to be anybody covered in blue lightning waiting for them in the alleyway.

   “I’ll go this way,” said Sarah, jerking her head to the right. “Probably best if you go left, more into the town.”

   “Okay,” said Terry as the zombies began pawing at the kitchen door. “Good luck, you take care of yourself okay?”

   Sarah smiled, stood on her tip toes to give him a little kiss on the cheek, then sprinted off out of sight.

   “Let’s go,” said Hermione as the first zombie managed to get the door behind them open. She ran out into the deluge with Terry by her side. They’d only gone about ten feet before she caught sight of a blue crackle further down the alley. She threw her hand into Terry’s chest, but he’d already seen it.

   “We shouldn’t have stayed still for so long,” he said ruefully. “Here, this way.”

   He nipped forward and grabbed the handle of another back door. It was locked but he soon opened it with a quick _‘Alohomora’_ spell, and the two of them shot inside.

   Once he’d lit his wand, he slammed the door shut behind them and she realised they were in some kind of storage room, piled high with cardboard boxes. Silently, they crept forwards, eyes roaming for any cursed people lurking in the shadows. The room smelled of compost and made Hermione feel a little light headed, although she was most certainly feeling a great deal better since throwing up her breakfast.

   They reached another door and Terry slowly eased it open. It lead into a florists teaming with colourful bouquets, pot plants and trays of flowers, though thankfully no sign of any zombies.

   “Okay,” said Hermione as they eased their way inside. “What now?”

   Terry shook his head. “We need to try and find the person casting this spell, how would they being doing it? Where would be the best kind of place for them to be set up?”

   “Um,” said Hermione, wiping rainwater from her face. “Well, they’d need a cauldron I guess, and to be affecting this many people I would imagine they’d need to be in a wide open space, so there’s minimum interference.”

   Terry nodded, eyebrows raised hopefully. “Wide open space is much better than hidden away in some basement or something.”

   But Hermione shook her head. “They’ll almost certainly be camouflaged, at least that’s what I would do.”

   Terry cocked his head at her. “You have some secret Death Eater training I don’t know about?”

   “No,” snapped Hermione. “I just have a brain in my head. They wouldn’t want to risk the spell caster being interrupted.”

   “Excuse me Miss Know-It-All,” said Terry in a sing-song voice, and moved to the glass-fronted entrance to the shop. “May I suggest then, that we go and try to find some wide open spaces, then throw rocks around to see if they bounce off thin air?”

   “Or we could try a revealing charm,” said Hermione. “Or rather _you_ could.”

   “It kills you,” said Terry, peering out the window. “Not having a wand, doesn’t it?”

   “Like I’ve lost a limb,” said Hermione through gritted teeth. What a stupid thing to ask. “Let’s go alright, before any more zombies find us.”

   “Oh I think there’ll be plenty of zombies out there to chase after us,” said Terry in a mock cheery tone.

   “Jolly good,” breathed Hermione, and ventured out into the rain.

   They were in the middle of a parade of shops, standing on a pavement that was separated from the road by a low hedge and lamp posts with dilapidated hanging baskets swinging on wrought iron brackets. Hermione crouched down near the shrubbery and ran along the path away from the pub and the florists. There were zombies on the road, and one stuck inside a hardware store they rushed past, but Hermione hoped it was too dark for the cursed people to really notice them.

   At the end of the row, the two students stopped, squatted in the rain and surveyed their surroundings. They were on a main road still, and another road crossed with it here. There was an Indian restaurant on the corner opposite them, and across the road a bike shop and another pub.

   There were numerous abandoned cars in the road and plenty of people drudging around them, moaning over the rain and tripping over curbs. Not for the first time Hermione felt desperately sorry for them, and furious at the people who had cursed them.

   “Try the spell,” she urged Terry through chattering teeth. If she got through this, she promised herself a long, hot bath. With bubbles.

   Terry took a quick look around. _“Homenum Revelio,”_ he said.

   If there was anyone hiding under an invisibility charm, that would in theory show Hermione and Terry where they were, but Hermione wasn’t sure it had even worked.

   “That’s not...quite the motion,” she said as tactfully as she could.

   Terry raised an eyebrow. “No,” he said. “There’s just no Death Eaters hiding at these crossroads.”

   Hermione grimaced. “I’m not saying there are, but let me show you.” She reached out for his wand, but he pulled his arm back, scrutinizing her. Hermione sighed, aware they were still very much surrounded by zombies. “Please?” she added.

   Terry raised an eyebrow, but handed his wand over all the same. “It’s a sweeping motion,” she said eagerly. She drew both her arms out with a flourish, like a conductor of an orchestra, and brought them together again in a similar fashion. _“Homenum Revelio.”_

   The spell let off the faintest of pulses, like a glittery silver ring powering through the rain, which it had not done for Terry. Still no one became visible, but Hermione was at least satisfied this time that they’d covered the area properly.

   “Alright smarty pants,” said Terry, a rueful smile as he snatched his wand back. “I’ll try your way next time.”

   At that moment, a zombie nurse stumbled into the hedge, and swung her arms out over Hermione and Terry’s heads, trying to reach them. Hermione couldn’t help but let out a little shriek and jolted to her feet, running down the road with Terry by her side.

   “Where now!” he cried as more zombies turned around and began paying attention to them. Thunder rumbled overhead, giving Hermione goose bumps.

   “We need to lose them!” she called back as a man bumbled from around one of the cars. Hermione guessed he must have been a butcher by trade, as he wore a white apron covered in smears of blood that sent shivers down her spine. “Look out!”

   She and Terry backed up and scrambled over the bonnet of the nearest car to change directions. There was a field to their left, bordered with evergreen trees, or thicker trees if they crossed over the road. “There?” she asked, pointing to the denser trees.

   “More cover,” said Terry with a nod, and sprinted across the lanes of the dual carriage way in between cars, ducking down to try and shake the zombies now following them. Hermione stuck on his tail, breathing hard against the freezing rain. It was like being in a maze, one wrong move and they would come face to face with another zombie from behind a people carrier or jeep.

   They couldn’t get straight across the road because of the way the vehicles had been abandoned, and they kept seeing zombie feet under the chassis’ forcing them to wind more and more around the cars, trying to avoid bumping into unpleasantness. Hermione’s heart was hammering against her ribcage as the cursed townsfolk closed in, cornering them.

   “Quick,” said Terry, rolling under a bus just ahead of them. Hermione did the same, covering her clothes, skin and hair in a film of exhaust fumes and dirt from the tarmac. She crawled all the way under, careful that her feet weren’t showing near the edge.

   Terry put his finger to his lips indicating they should be as quiet as they could, to which Hermione nodded enthusiastically. They squirmed into the middle of the bus as the number of feet congregating around it increased. Please, Hermione begged silently. Please don’t think to look down. The feet shuffled, in what she imagined to be distress at having lost their quarry, and there were several bangs on the bus. She breathed in and out as calmly as she could, tasting the rain in the air and the dirt from the road. Please, she thought again, closing her eyes in an attempt to stay calm.

   Something touched her hand and she jumped, eyes flying open. But it was only Terry, taking it in his own and giving it a reassuring squeeze. She managed a smile back, and he continued with his grip as she watched the feet. There were trainers and wellies and heels and slippers, all in varying sizes and colours. The contact between their two hands soothed her nerves, and Terry even went so far as to rub his thumb on her knuckles.

   A brown pair of large men’s brown shoes turned slowly on the spot, then began to shuffle away. Hermione squeezed Terry’s hand and pointed excitedly with her free one. Then a small pair of white trainers did the same, wondering off in pursuit of other interests.

   Hermione waited with baited breath, and slowly, but surely, the zombies began to leave the bus alone. She breathed out in relief, and smiled genuinely at Terry, who grinned back.

   But that was before the dog appeared. It was a Jack Russell Terrier, small with close cropped white and brown fur. It rippled with blue electricity, and locked it’s white, lifeless eyes with Hermione’s.

   “Go!” hissed Terry frantically, and the two of them began shuffling their way out from under the bus. The Jack Russell let out a chilling moan, baying at the moon behind the rainclouds, then tried to stumble under the bus.

   “Bad dog!” yelled Terry, waving his hands at the fumbling terrier. “Get lost!”

   Hermione considered telling him to shut up as she rolled back out into the rain, but the dog had already re-caught the attention of the zombies that had been wondering off. “Come on!” she cried, grabbing his arm to help him up, and without pause they began sprinting as fast as their legs could manage towards the trees, trying to capitalise on the zombies’ confusion as they turned back around.

   They zig-zagged around cars, crossing lanes and scrambling up the grassy bank towards the trees. But the ground was muddy and more water than dirt in some places, and Hermione’s feet in Terry’s trainers slapped around uselessly. “Ah!” she cried and she slid backwards and pin-wheeled her arms, but Terry seized her hand and dragged her up into the tree line.

   “At lease that should slow those guys down too,” said Terry, jerking his head at the slowly walking townspeople. “Give us some time.”

   “We need another open space,” gasped Hermione, breathing hard against the rain. “Now.”

Terry shrugged as they hurried further into the trees. At least the canopy gave them a little relief from the downpour. “I guess we carry on the same way?” he said. Hermione didn’t have a better idea, so keeping a few meters in from the verge, they hurried along the roadside, keeping their eyes open for any blue electricity in the gloom. Now night had fallen and there were no lampposts to illuminate their way, the two of them found themselves very much in the dark. She wished she’d thought to pick up a map of the town when they were back at the corner shop, but she hadn’t figured on Sarah leaving them, or Terry’s intervention.

   By moonlight, they managed to find a field with some blissfully unaware horses and a car park by a small industrial estate, but the revealing spell showed them nobody in either.

   “This could take forever,” moaned Terry as they trudged on, still beside the road.

   “What choice do we have?” asked Hermione. Her forehead was so hot it felt like she was evaporating the rain as it hit her. “We don’t lift the curse, we can’t get out, all these people die and we can’t destroy the Horcrux. We just have to keep at it, and hope we get lucky soon.”

   Terry grunted and extinguished his wand, and they picked their way through the trees as the rainclouds blew over the moon, dappling them in light and shadow. They were silent for a while.

   There weren’t any zombies along this stretch of road, probably because there weren’t any buildings or homes nearby, but still they kept to foliage for safety. Even if it meant risking a twisted ankle.

   “It’s funny, isn’t it?” said Terry after a while. “What difference a day can make.”

   “Tell me about it,” grunted Hermione. “It was all so simple this morning; do the spell, send Draco and Sarah home, go back to real life.”

   “And now you’re here.”

   Hermione suppressed an hysterical little laugh. “In Zombieland.”

   Terry chewed on that whilst they tried the spell on another field, this one with several zombified cows stumbling about in. “Is your world completely different then?”

   Hermione sighed. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to talk about it, but seeing as the spell failed yet again she supposed she could tell him a little while they walked. She made sure not to drop her guard for zombies or Death Eaters though. The last thing they needed was anymore surprises.

   “Harry killed You-Know-Who as a baby,” she said, tiredly. “That’s the main one. But not before You-Know-Who killed his parents, so he didn’t know who he was growing up. He didn’t even know he was a wizard.”

   “How?” asked Terry, incredulous.

   “His aunt and uncle are horrid,” said Hermione simply. “But then he found out, came to the school, and since then it seems like he’s been fending off You-Know-Who until his return last summer. But then Draco fought him, and...” she trailed off.

“And now he’s in Limbo,” filled in Terry. “Yeah, that stuff I get, but what about you?”

   “Me?” she said, picking her way through some scratchy heather. Terry jerked his hands up as it flicked back in his face. “Whoops,” she said sincerely. “Sorry.”

   But Terry didn’t seem bothered. “You’re quite different here,” he said.

   “Am I?” asked Hermione surprised. “You’re not.”

   Terry stopped and considered that a moment. “Huh,” he said, a satisfied smile on his face. “But, yes, you act different, and you said you look different too.”

   Hermione found herself intrigued despite her best efforts, and once again her thoughts strayed back to that kiss Draco had bestowed on her. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I heard that.” Nature verses nurture perhaps? What made her different from her doppelganger?

   “From Draco?” Terry piped up. “Are you two an item in your world too?”

   “No!” Hermione couldn’t help but cry out loud, but then she slapped her hands over her mouth. Despite her best intentions, she’d stopped paying attention to the road, and there were several zombies wondering around on the tarmac again. At her outburst, a few of them slowly raised their heads, and began shuffling towards the trees.

   “Go!” hissed Terry, and as silently as they could, they ran through the trees once again. Hermione cursed herself for being so careless, but something soon snagged her attention.

   There was a roundabout up ahead, with a bridge over the top. The moon had managed to make its way out from between the latest batch of clouds, and from what Hermione could see there were houses again to the left, the continuing road straight ahead, and a smaller road that wound up in front of where the trees came to a clean stop on the right. Zombies were teaming everywhere. It was like a mob at a pop concert, waiting for the band to start, or eager shoppers on their toes for a sale to open.

   “This looks promising,” she murmured as they came to the tree line. “Remember how they were drawn to the Death Eaters outside the pub? But they had that shield spell protecting them.”

   Terry nodded, looking left and right. Up the winding road was another deserted car park, but beyond that was a primary school.

   “Shall I try the spell on the roundabout?” asked Terry, and Hermione nodded. Nothing came of it, but she was feeling a tingle of anticipation.

   “Let’s get closer to the school,” she said, jutting her chin over to the right. The trees flanked the road as it curled around, so they were still able to stick to the foliage. Zombie men, women and children roamed the tarmac and grass, and surrounded the building. Hermione found herself looking behind her shoulder into the trees every few seconds to check none were creeping up behind them.

   There was a playground attached to the school with all kinds of apparatus for children to climb over and hang themselves upside down on. The zombies were congregating here on mass, but it was hard to see if there were any gaps were an invisible spell caster might be stationed. “Try again,” Hermione whispered, and Terry did as he was told. The silvery ring pulsated away from them, passing through the oblivious cursed people, but Hermione couldn’t tell if they’d managed to reveal any Death Eaters.

   “We need a higher vantage point,” she said, frustrated.

   “And what then?” asked Terry. “What if they’re in amongst that hoard, could you really take on a Death Eater?”

   Hermione bristled. “Well I don’t have a wand,” she said. “Do I?”

   Terry shook his head, and pressed his into her hands. “Say you did, what would your chances be?”

   “With your wand?” She sighed. “Well my Defence Against the Dark Arts OWL wasn’t my best, but it’s probably still quite advanced compared to the knowledge-”

   “No time!” cried Terry, as Hermione turned in horror to realise several zombies were in the trees, advancing towards them. “Get up on that climbing frame, find the wizards and take them down!”

   “But-!” They stumbled out of the trees, catching the attention of the zombies on the grass nearest to them. “We don’t even know for sure they’re here!” shrieked Hermione. “What will you do!”

   Terry grinned. “Something reckless.” He grabbed her face, kissed her lips, then sprinted away. _“HEY!”_ he bellowed at the top of his lungs. _“HEY, GREATFUL DEAD, LOOK AT ME!”_

   The zombies perked up at such a noisy target, and began shambling towards him. Hermione was torn between horror, confusion, and just plain ill, but at that moment she remembered the zombies pushing through the trees and ran out in to the rain, hanging back whilst Terry drew them away from the playground.

   “Oh please be careful,” she said to herself.

   _“COME AND GET IT, WHILST IT’S HOT!”_ he cried gleefully, skipping around and running further and further away.

   Hermione was stuck in plain sight, she had barely seconds before some of the cursed towns people realised she was just as warm and living, even if she wasn’t tearing around a muddy field in her socks screaming.

   _“COOEEE! BRAIN MUNCHERS!”_

She risked one last look at Terry, who was at least ten feet away from the nearest zombie still, then she dashed towards a big wooden climbing frame, complete with ladders, swings, monkey bars and an enclosed tin slide that looked more like a workman’s refuse tube. She scaled the ladder, and, not wanting to risk any zombies getting smart, hauled herself up over the monkey bars to stand on top of them. The pelting rain threatened to unbalance her, especially in Terry’s oversized Trainers, but she hung on. From here she could see the whole school grounds.

   _“Homenum Revelio,”_ she said with feeling, flouncing her arms out and in, releasing the silvery pulse.

   And this time it worked.

   Hermione almost dropped Terry’s wand in shock. There, only for a few seconds, was a man, hunkered over a cauldron of bubbling green liquid, utterly ensconced in his chanting and oblivious to the carnage happing around him. Or at least Hermione assumed it was a man, because all she could see was his back, slender and tall. He seemed to be wearing the same black robes as the other Death Eaters, but his head was wrapped up in a large purple turban, so Hermione couldn’t even tell his ethnicity.

   The spell faded and the man vanished once more, and in the sudden blackness Hermione realized something wasn’t right. There were lights bobbing about by the road, and the zombies were wailing particularly loudly in response. There was shouting coming from the lights, and Hermione’s insides froze in terror. She spun around, looking for an escape, but there were still zombies all around her, even if they hadn’t noticed her atop the monkey bars.

   An idea flared in her tired, throbbing head, and before she could reconsider, she dropped down a level, ran across the climbing frame, and dropped into the tin slide. She braced Terry’s trainers against the tin sides as best she could, and held onto the lip of the slide. There was still another couple of meters before the slide’s base, so unless the zombies leant to climb up the metal she’d be safe.

   But more importantly, she could peek out and see who was coming.

   Several figures apparently using the same protection shield charm were running amongst the zombies. “You see anything?” one of the black hoods called to another. He pulled it down to unveil a mop of brown hair.

   “No,” replied his fellow, doing the same and spitting out rainwater. “But I definitely heard something.”

   “Someone was shouting,” concurred a woman with a pitchy voice. “Oi, get off me!” she shooed one of the zombies away, a teenage boy who looked hurt by her rebuff and shuffled off with his head down.

   “You’re right,” came a voice clear and strong, and all the other Death Eaters turned to look at him as he curled his fingers around his hood and lowered it gently, almost relishing as the cold rain hit his face. Hermione was very glad it was raining loudly at that moment, as at the sight of the young man’s face she gasped and almost lost her grip on the slide.

   Barty Crouch Jr. She’d know that face anywhere. She’d become obsessed with researching him after Harry had uncovered him as Mad Eyed Moody’s imposter for nearly year. But their Barty had suffered a Dementor’s Kiss, she hadn’t even thought he’d be alive in this world.

   “We need to find them!” called out the brown haired man, but Crouch, tall and calm, simply turned and gave his cohort a small smile. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Crouch, almost kindly. “Not anymore.”

   Hermione felt her breath catch in her throat as she whipped her head round, eyes squinting desperately in the darkness. But in the end she didn’t need to see. All she had to do was listen.

   Terry had stopped shouting.


	11. Farewell To The Fairground (Part Three)

Chapter Six - Part Three

 

   Ron Weasley felt like he’d been holding his breath forever. Abigail and A.J. trembled as they struggled to keep their mirrors aloft, waiting in the echoing silence for Bellatrix Lestrange to appear from the watery tunnel they themselves had just escaped from.

   Taking a moment to breathe and think, Ron realised it really wasn’t silent in the lofty chamber of mirrors they had found themselves in, he was just concentrating too hard. It was filled with the sounds of rushing water, complaining reflections, his own heart beating. Their clothes dripped, the arches in the ceiling creaked and his head banged like a marching band had taken refuge in his skull. He squeezed his fingers around his brother’s wand, rubbing his thumb reassuringly along the grooves, feeling the unfamiliar indents.

   “C’mon,” he muttered, blinking and squinting at the exit, desperate for any sign of movement. The trouble was there was too much movement from the plant life within, and once or twice he swore he caught a glimpse of something long and pink flicking around.

   “The Hell she playin’ at?” demanded Abbey, resting her mirror on her head, which in turn began scalding her afresh for her plans to break it. “Where is she, she weren’t that far behind.”

   “Maybe she drowned?” suggested Ron quietly.

   “We can only hope,” added A.J. darkly.

   Just then, something caught Ron’s eye, something black and solid within the depths. His body rinsed cold and every muscle tensed. “Get ready,” he hissed, his voice strangled, and the two Americans jumped to attention. Just concentrate, he told himself. You can do this, just think what Harry would do, what Hermione would do.

   The foliage was thrashing about, and Ron pulled his arm back, ready to swing down with the curse. In a fevered whirl of churning bubbles, Bellatrix Lestrange leaped out from the watery barrier, brandishing Abbey’s stolen wand and snarling. Ron, Abbey and A.J. brought their weapons down with yells and shouts, but Bellatrix wasn’t You-Know-Who’s right hand woman for nothing. It seemed she had emerged from the tunnel firing a protective charm, and the two mirrors rebounded violently from the shield a foot above her head. With a flash of her wand she threw Abbey and A.J. back in opposite directions and they crashed into stacks of mirrors, shattering them and covering themselves in lacerations. Abbey smacked her head and crumpled to the floor, and A.J. sliced his left arm deeply, causing him to cry out. All of this happened in a blink of an eye as Ron shot out his spell and hard as he could.

   _“Impedimenta!”_ he roared, as she turned to face him. Her shield wasn’t strong enough to repel him completely and she spun, slamming into the wall and only just missing the water.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ she screamed back, and before Ron could think he was blasted to the floor, his wand flung from his hand and lost amongst the debris. She scrabbled off the stone and lunged for him, straddling his body and pinning him down. “Where’s the stone!” she demanded, grabbing hold of his throat. He choked for breath and clawed at her arms, terror sweeping over him. There was a crashing sort of sound, and she let go with one hand to aim a spell over in A.J.’s direction – it wasn’t green but Ron was still desperate to see if he was okay. He coughed as she went to grab him again, but she realised her current tactic was stopping him from talking, so switched grips to push down his chest and point the wand in his face. “Tell me or you won’t even comprehend the horrors I will inflict on you.”

   She smiled wickedly as her dripping wet mane of hair fell around her face, and Ron gasped for breath and looked wildly around.

   “I – I have no idea!” he cried truthfully, trying to push himself off the floor. “We just got here, I have no idea!” She shoved him back onto the ground and snatched a handful of shirt.

   “The little Mudblood wants to play games,” she whispered with a demented grin. She rocked backwards and jabbed her stolen wand at him. _“Crucio!”_  

   Scalding fire ignited all over Ron’s body, and he screamed out like he never knew he could. There were no words he could form, only pain propelling the unrelenting cry.

   “Stop it, stop it, leave him alone!” Abbey’s voice pierced faintly through Ron’s wall of agony, and even in his despair he tried to reach out. Leave her alone! he wanted to shout. They have nothing to do with it, it’s me! But no words would come.

   It seemed like minutes but it only could have been seconds before Bellatrix let Ron go and turned her attention to Abbey. _“Incarcerous!”_ she yelled, her drenched dress flicking water over Ron as she spun and bound the blond girl with ropes. He shook as the aftermath of pain left his body, gasping for air and struggling to get off the floor so he could see above the mirrors. A.J. was already bound and gagged, sat leaning against the small stone wall that divided his level from the next one up. His arm was bleeding at a terrific rate and his skin looked almost grey. He was attempting to keep his eyes open with visible effort, but with what little strength he has left he still pushed against his binds.

   Abbey fell back to the ground as the ropes hit her and Ron could see a trickle of blood running down her temple from where she’d hit her head. She tried scrabbling backwards away from the advancing Bellatrix, kicking her feet against the stone floor as her arms were bound, but there were so many shards of glass she had to stop. “How about you, little girl,” mocked Bellatrix in a sing-song voice. “What do you know?”

   “He told y’all – _nothin’!”_ she shouted, sitting forwards and glaring at the woman. “We didn’t even know the thing was in this room until you said it was!”

   “LIARS!” screeched Bellatrix, flinging Abbey backwards again in a shower of glass. “Do you think I am a fool? Crabapple wouldn’t send you down here without telling you about the mirror!”

   Something clanged in Ron’s throbbing head so hard he actually staggered backwards. The mirror? Harry had told Ron he pulled the Philosopher’s Stone from the mirror they’d found at Christmas, the one with the strange inscription, where he was head boy and everything. Was that the one? Was it here, hidden amongst all these others?

   “She didn’t send us,” tried Abbey, “we-”

   “SHUT UP!” howled Bellatrix. “I’m running out of time! Which one is it?” she demanded, pointing her wand at Abbey’s heaving chest. “Or do you want a little of what the boy had?” A.J. was screaming behind his gag, yanking at the ropes, as Ron stood there helpless. Now he knew where the stone actually was he was even more panicked. He couldn’t see the mirror he needed even if he did want to tell Bellatrix, which he really didn’t. What could he do – she was deranged, she was going to kill them all. The were going to die, just like Chris, in this dank room filled with nothing but grumbling, creepy mirrors to mourn them.

   Inspiration struck. It was only the smallest of ideas, but Ron’s mouth was open before he could talk himself out of it. If it saved Abbey what was about to happen it was worth it.

   “Wait!” he shouted, and tried shakily to move towards the two witches. Bellatrix paused in her stride and looked warily round at him. “I know where it is, don’t hurt her, I’ll tell you.”

   “No!” cried Abbey. A.J. shouted from underneath his gag.

   Bellatrix placed her hands together and her face contorted into what she passed for a smile. “Much better,” she simpered. “Show me.”

   Ron swallowed dryly and tried to remember where it was. “Um...it’s this way.” He began picking his way through the path he’d trodden when he’d first arrived, and in a few seconds Bellatrix was right behind him. “So, if I show you will you let us go?” he bluffed.

   “We’ll see,” she said, poking him in the back with Abbey’s wand. “I haven’t got it yet, have I?”

   “Ron don’t you do this!” said Abbey desperately from behind them. “She’s gonna kill us anyhow, don’t you give her that stone!”

   Ron thought it would look good to falter, so he did. He paused walking and looked back at the Death Eater. “Don’t listen to her,” snapped Bellatrix. “If you get me the stone of course I’ll let you go.” Ron nodded stiffly and carried on walking.

“You coward!” yelled Abbey, her voice breaking, and this time Ron did not turn round to see. “You yella bellied, chicken liver piece o’ possum parts!” She sounded like she might have started crying, and Ron couldn’t bear to think about it. She’d understand, he told himself. Just keep focused.

   With a jolt he spotted what he was looking for. “That one,” he said numbly, pointing with his shaking left hand to the mirror that had called to him on his arrival, before A.J. had fallen out from the water. Bellatrix frowned at him and took a closer inspection. The other mirrors had silenced themselves since her entrance, but this one perked up with the chance of having a reflection.

   “Come here,” Bellatrix’s voice whispered seductively from the frame, just as it had done to Ron. The witch’s eyes widened suspiciously and she turned to him questioningly.

   “It um,” stuttered Ron. “It – I – Crabapple said it would call to us. I think you have to get closer, that’s what she said.” His heart hammered in his chest, convinced she would catch him out on his lie.

   Bellatrix looked back at her reflection as it cooed for her to come closer, beckoning with a finger. Ron took the chance to sneak a look at the now silent Abbey. The dirt on her face was streaked with tears, she was breathing heavily and looking at him with a mixture of horror and complete confusion. Of course Crabapple had not told them any such thing in the slightest, and Ron was banking on his companions reading this as a sign. He checked Bellatrix was still entranced by the foreboding talking mirror (“Come _heeeeere_.”), then waved his fingers ever so slightly upwards. Get up, he was trying to say to Abbey, get ready, keep talking, it’s okay. She didn’t need telling twice.

   “Ronald Weasley,” she howled, her voice torn but her face determined. “Your momma gonna be ashamed o’ the day you were born you yella bellied traitor!” She managed to get to her feet, and Ron turned to see A.J. trying to do the same, but his injury was making it hard for him.

   “Shut UP!” snapped Bellatrix, and Ron’s insides plummeted. She did not however take her eyes off the mirror as she got close enough to reach out and touch the frame. “How do I get the stone boy, where is-”

   But Bellatrix Lestrange did not get a chance to finish her sentence. As her fingers gripped the gold gilt surrounding the mirror, her reflection grinned wickedly, and faster than could almost be seen she shot her arm out of the glass as if it was water, into the real world, seizing Bellatrix by the throat. She cried out in shock, dropped Abigail’s wand and tried to push herself away, but it was as if the mirror was cemented to the table on which it stood, and the reflection’s grip was as strong a steal. “Come here,” she growled. Ron stumbled backwards as the reflection slowly pulled Bellatrix towards her. She kicked and screamed, yanking at the arm and the hand that choked her breath from her.

   “Please,” she garbled, her frantic eyes flicking towards Ron. “Please help me!”

   Ron didn’t know what to do, other than cling onto a large mirror to stop his knees giving way. He’d caused this. Could he just leave her to the mirror’s fate? He didn’t know what it was, but it definitely didn’t sound good as the reflection cackled and drew the Death Eater in almost to the glass.

   _“Please,”_ she begged, “I’ll d-do anything!”

   He looked back at his friends. Abbey was watching on horrified, but A.J. had slumped back to the ground, the stones slippery with his blood. His eyes could barely stay open, but when they were they clung to Bellatrix, hatred blazing with impunity. She had murdered Chris, Ron told himself angrily, as well as who knew how many others. She was evil and cruel and deserved a sticky end.

   But as he turned back to look at her, all he could see was a scared woman fighting for her life. She braced herself against the mirror’s edges as her reflection tugged at her throat, frightened yelps escaping her mouth. She may be a killer, he thought weakly, clinging to his mirror for support. But he wasn’t.

   He pushed himself off and stumbled forward towards her, and her eyes lit up. But as he reached out, Bellatrix’s hand slipped from the frame, and with one last pull the reflection heaved her headfirst through the barrier between this world and wherever the reflective one was. She screamed, an unearthly, tortuous sound as her boots slipped through the mirror’s surface until finally, thankfully, all fell silent.

   Ron’s shaky breaths seemed to echo against the walls. Carefully he edged up to look at the mirror that had just devoured Bellatrix. He saw himself slowly come into frame, and just like when he had looked before, the blue did not quite meet his eyes. The reflection Ron was smiling darkly, leisurely licking his fingers, a swagger about his person.

   Hastily Ron backed away, almost tripping on Abby’s wand as he stood on it accidently. He scooped it off the floor, giving himself a terrible head rush, then hurried down the steps to Abigail who was nearest.

   “Oh Ron!” she cried as he approached. “I am so unbelievably sorry for callin’ you a chicken liver piece o’ possum parts!”

   “It’s okay,” he breathed as he managed the spell to release her from her ropes. Dizziness overcame him; exhaustion from the Crucio spell, the physical tasks beforehand, sleeping in a car in driving across an unknown country. The trauma of watching his new friend die, thwarting Rodriguez, traversing the challenges to find the stone. And now, because of his hesitation, someone else had died in front of his eyes. She was undoubtedly going to kill them the first chance she got, but in the state his head was in Ron couldn’t stop himself buckling under the weight of it all. As Abbey’s ropes fell to the ground, so did he, shaking and sweating. He heaved, wanted to be sick again, but he had nothing left to give.

   Abbey dropped down to his level, taking his shoulders. “It’s okay,” she told him tearfully. “It’s over, you saved us.”

   Ron nodded. “A.J.” he muttered, holding up her wand. In a flash she snatched it from him and sprinted over to where A.J. was, propped up against the wall, chest heaving and limbs trembling.

   “Hold on!” she cried, trying not slide in his blood. _“Episkey!”_ The smaller cuts over his body healed within seconds, but all this did to his arm was slow the bleeding at bit. _“Diffindo.”_ The ropes binding his arms fell away and she pulled his gag off. She shook it out, then used it to try and wrap up his arm. “Are you okay?” she breathed, checking him over. “Y’all lost a lotta blood here.”

   The Muggle boy nodded and gingerly held where his arm had been sliced. “Dizzy,” he told her, “but okay. Ron – how you doing?” he shouted over.

   Ron rolled onto his back and stared at the vaulted ceiling. “Marvellous,” he croaked. Sleep would be just amazing right now, he thought. His eyes fluttered closed and he breathed in deeply.

   “Ron?” cried a voice. “Ron can you hear me?”

   Confused, Ron turned his head. Seamus Finnigan was crouched down next to him.

   “No,” said Ron crossly, turning his head away again. “No you can’t be here.”

   “Who?” snapped Abbey, looking around.

   Seamus clicked his fingers in front of Ron’s face. “Oi,” he said in his Irish accent. “Pay attention before you wake up!”

   Ron frowned. “Wake up?”

   “He’s delirious,” gasped A.J., obviously struggling to get his words out.

   “Yes,” said Seamus, his face swimming in front of Ron’s vision. “You’ve passed out, so I can talk to you, and we haven’t got time so you have to listen to me, understand?”

   “How are you here?” croaked Ron. His mouth was dry and his eyes were stinging. Was he really asleep? He was still aware of Abbey and A.J. moving around near him, but Seamus was undoubtedly the clearest thing to him right now.

   “It’s not important,” insisted Seamus. “I have a message from Harry, your Harry Potter.”

   That got Ron’s attention. “Is he okay?” he cried. “Where is he?”

   “Where’s who pumpkin?” demanded Abbey. She was standing over Ron’s other side now, oblivious to Seamus still crouched on the right. “C’mon now, you need to wake up Ron, we gotta get going.”

   “No!” shrieked Seamus. “Don’t you dare wake up! Harry’s in Limbo, he’s in between universes and he’s got to fight Voldemort, do you hear me? Him and Draco.” He looked good, Ron had to note. Maybe it was because he, A.J. and Abbey were all such a wreck, but Seamus Finnigan looked really great. “They’re in trouble, and you need to help them, they haven’t got a chance without you!”

   “You were in the car,” said Ron thickly. “Weren’t you?”

   Seamus let out an exasperated cry. “Why can’t you fall asleep properly like Hermione!” he said.

   “’Mione?” mumbled Ron.

   “Yes,” snapped Seamus. “She cooperated, even though...” he trailed off. “Where’s your hat?” he asked, horror struck.

   Ron frowned at him.

   “A.J. he won’t come round,” called Abbey.

   “Red hat?” clarified Ron.

   “Yes,” said Seamus. “Yes, yes it’s really important, don’t tell me you lost yours too?”

   Ron felt so tired. He couldn’t believe he was semi-conscious like Seamus had said. “In the car,” he remembered. “Took it off, felt better.”

   Seamus balled his fists and screwed his eyes shut. “At least yours isn’t lost,” he growled, then opened his eyes. “What I’m about to tell you will hopefully save all life as we know it, do you hear me Ron, the entire Universe depends on you following my instructions!”

   Abbey slapped his face, and for a second Seamus vanished as Ron turned to look at her, but Seamus grabbed his t-shirt, bringing him back in a split second. “Don’t you dare,” he cried, desperate.

   “What do I do?” muttered Ron. He could tell Seamus was upset, and he wanted to help.

   “Destroy the hat,” said Seamus, his eyes wide. “You’ll need poison, magic fire, anything that’ll make it magically beyond repair.”

   “The hat?” repeated Ron, confused. “Kill a hat?”

   “That hat has a bit of Voldemort’s soul in, and if you don’t destroy it, Draco can’t destroy his Voldemort and the Multiverse will unravel.”

   Ron nodded.

   “Sweetheart wake up,” cried Abbey, frightened.

   “Kill the hat,” he said, grinning at Seamus. “Magic fire.”

   “Or mutate it,” said Seamus eagerly. “Or get it into a vacuum and-”

   But Abbey landed a second slap square on his cheek, shock igniting along his skin, and Ron really, truly woke up.

   “What you do that for!” he cried, sitting up, nausea washing over him afresh.

   “Y’all were dreaming aloud,” said Abbey, eyebrows raised. “Talking about killing a hat with magic fire.”

   Ron blinked. Had he? Something was dancing just out of his reach, but he couldn’t remember. “What’s going on?” he asked.

   “Ding dong the witch is dead,” Abigail informed him. “Now let’s make like a tree, and get outta here.”

   Ron rubbed his eyes and stared pitifully at her. “Can’t I sleep?” he murmured.

   “Nope,” she told him, crouching down to help him off the floor. Reluctantly he agreed and threw is arm over her shoulder. She lifted him up with relatively little problem.

   “Wow, you’re strong,” he told her, impressed in his slightly delirious state.

   “Yep,” she said, propping him on his feet. “And you’re heavy.”

   “I lost my wand,” he remembered. Abbey huffed then held her own wand aloft.

   _“Accio wand!”_ she cried, and sure enough Bill’s battered wand squirmed its way from underneath a pile of debris and flew over to where they stood. Abbey caught it deftly and handed it back to him.

   “Hang on,” said A.J. limply. Ron and Abbey turned to face him. He took several deep breaths and blinked his eyes. Ron felt the silence pressing down on him; after surviving so much in the last couple of hours, the absence of loud noises chilled him. Would something else pop out now, or would they be left in peace. A.J. grunted and hefted himself up a bit. “We should find that stone.”

   “The Sorcerer’s Stone?” clarified Abbey. Ron went to correct her then found he didn’t have the energy.

   “The one Bellatrix was after,” clarified A.J.

   Abbey frowned. “Why? Let’s just high tail it.”

   Ron was with Abbey; they should leave well enough alone and get out of this terrible place. But he felt like he needed to do something, something urgent. He wasn’t sure what though. Maybe he was just keen to get out of this place.

   But A.J. shook his head. “What if someone else comes after us, someone like them. We should take it and keep it safe.”

   “We could take it to Crabapple,” exclaimed Abbey, a smile brightening her face. “Do you really know where it is Ron?”

   He sort of shrugged and nodded at the same time. If they wanted to take it, fine. He didn’t care anymore. “Well, I’m guessing it’ll be in the same place as it was hidden in before, when Harry got it. I didn’t think of it until Bellatrix said Crabapple had told us which mirror.”

   “What’s it look like,” asked A.J.

   Ron rubbed his head with his free hand and tried to blink away his fatigue. “It’s in a massive great mirror, with big feet and funny writing on the top. When you look in it you see whatever you want the most. Like your deepest desires. It’s a bit weird.” He scanned the hundreds of mirrors surrounding them, thinking it would jump out instantly. However nothing caught his eye right away, and he frowned looking up and down the room.

   “That was odd,” said Abbey whilst gazing at a nearby mirror. “Why’d she think Crabapple sent us down here? We only found it cuz Rodriguez chased us.”

   “Perhaps she just assumed it was Crabapple?” suggested A.J. His voice struggled to travel all the way across to where Ron had wondered to. He nodded in agreement.

   “Dumbledore basically sent us down the first time,” he told them said ruefully. “He thinks things like that are good for you.”

   “Although,” pondered A.J., ignoring what Ron had said. “What if they wanted us to try out the obstacles first...like cannon fodder. It is an amazing coincidence you’ve already done something like this before Ron, and Crabapple did say that evil wizard dude knew about you. What if Rodriguez guided us in this direction?”

   “You think he was workin’ with Bellatrix then?” asked Abbey sadly. “He was always a darlin’ of a teacher.” She too was looking through the mirrors, turning a oval silver one over in her hands.  

   “Maybe she put him under the Imperius Curse,” suggested Ron kindly. “Making him do everything. If so he’ll be alright now she’s...” he struggled with the word. “Gone,” he put delicately. Maybe she was just stuck in the mirror, he thought to himself. The Ministry could pull her out and put her on trial, send her off to Azkaban. The thought comforted him.

   “Is this it?” floated Abbey’s voice from behind various mirrors. Leaving a fascinating little jade framed mirror behind (everything was in black and white and looked a little like an old Muggle film) Ron weaved his way towards her, some of his reflections peeking cautiously at him as he went. He shakily climbed up a level, then turned a corner to see himself surrounded by an enormous engraved gold frame. His stomach dropped and he jumped back at what he saw, and had to take a moment to remember what the mirror did. Because there next to him was not Abbey as it should have been, but a happy and beaming Harry and Hermione. The three of them were hugging in relief, and Hermione kissed his cheek.

   “Yeah,” managed Ron once he’d got a grip on reality. “This is the one.” He looked at the strange writing on the top: _‘Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.’_

   “Figured as much,” said Abbey nodding. “Seemed a bit unlikely I’d produce a Grammy or George Clooney outta thin air.”

   Ron looked at her, then back at his reflection, only now it had changed. He was alone again, just as dirty and tired as real life, only sporting a knowing smile. He pulled his hand from his pocket to reveal a small, blood red stone, then returned it to his jeans.   With a slight jump, Ron felt he now had the stone in his pocket, and he fished it out to show Abbey.

   _“Eeeee!”_ she squealed and flung her arms around him. “We got it, we got it!” she cried down to A.J., who managed a weak cheer and air punch in response. “How did you do that?” she asked incredulously.

   “Harry said only some who wanted the stone, to keep it safe could get it out, not anyone who actually wanted to use it.”

   “So Bellatrix couldn’t have never got it anyway?” she asked him, staring in awe at the shining stone. He shook his head. “Can I show A.J.?”

   “Sure,” he said, holding it out to her. She took it carefully and skipped off down the steps to the Muggle boy waiting below. Harry and Hermione were back in the mirror; they clapped him on the back.

   “So what do we do now?” asked A.J., his voice struggling to reach across to where Ron stood. He slowly breathed in and then out, not taking his eyes off Harry and Hermione.

   “I’ll see you soon,” he told them as resolutely as he could, then turned away to rejoin his real live companions. “I think we should try and get out of here,” he told them loudly as he picked his way back through the mirrors over to where the black boy was still slumped on the ground, the battle worn cheerleader by his side.

   “Awesome,” said Abbey. “So how exactly do we do that?”

   Ron sat down on a rickety wooden table home to several smaller propped up mirrors. His eyes roamed the edges of the lofty room, but there were too many obstacles in the way to see the walls properly. “Shall we...look for a door?” he suggested weakly. A sickening feeling was creeping through him as something came slowly back to him. Back in the first year, as he, Hermione and finally Harry had fallen one by one in their quest for the stone, they had all come out the same way. Back the way they had travelled in.

   The monster in the water, the maze, the pendulums, the goblin with the riddles. And then the flying key room – would that even still be there after all that fire? They couldn’t go back, they just couldn’t.

   “Okay,” came Abbey’s bright voice. “A.J. darlin’, sit there an’ hold on to that there stone. Ronald you take the left wall, I’ll take the right an’ we’ll meet in the middle, sound good?”

   Ron nodded and heaved himself off the table. He followed Abigail along a path between mirrors until they reached the edge of the church like room. Carefully, the two of them combed the walls, step by step, brick by brick, looking for any hint of a doorway hiding beneath. Ron was about halfway round when the harrowing sense of defeat started setting in. The adrenalin of the fight and the exhilaration of finding the stone were both almost all gone, and the reality was they were trapped in a room at the end of a labyrinth, goodness even knew how far underground. He started feeling dizzy again, gasping for breath but not really taking any into his lungs. He clung to the cement in between the stones and tried desperately to focus.

   “How y’all doin’?” called out Abbey from the other side of the room, bringing him back to his senses.

   He shook his head and rolled his shoulders. “Nothing yet,” he replied, his voice as strong as he could make it. Panicking would not get him anywhere – A.J. was seriously injured so this was up to him and Abbey to fix. He blinked several times and then carried on in his inspection. When they met in the middle their eyes connected with the same frail resolution. “You want to check my side?” he asked her.

   She nodded silently, and they continued forward with their task. At one point Ron thought he found a likely looking crack, but tried a few test spells on in before shouting out and came up with nothing. Disappointed he forged on ahead. There had to be something – a hidden leaver, somewhere to aim a spell at or (he shuddered to think) offer up some blood. But nothing stood out, nowhere did he see any signs. He squeezed behind an enormous stone framed mirror close to the wall, and his stomach dropped when Abbey came into view on the other side.

   “Guess y’all found nothin’ either,” she said sadly. In one fluid movement she crossed her legs and sat on the floor, her hands falling in her lap. “What now?” she asked limply, staring at the ground.

   This would not do. Ron felt something light in his belly; of all the defeats he would except today, Abigail Preston’s crushed spirit would not be one of them. They had to keep going they had to get out and...Why did he feel the overwhelming need to get back to Chris’ car?

   He shook away the thought. “We search the floor,” he said, eyes wide as he scooted down to her level. “We check the supporting beams, we talk to the bloody mirrors if we have to – we are going to get out of here!” She looked up at him, and a small smile crept onto her face.

   “Okay Hogwarts,” she said, accepting his hand as he offered it to get her off the ground. “Let’s keep lookin’, not like we got Hell all else to do.”

   And so their hunt continued, A.J. and the reflections pitching in helpful advice when they could. ‘Try behind me!’ – ‘That looks like it could be a trap door!’ – ‘Don’t move his frame, he’ll bite!’

   That was until suddenly, up near the back at the highest level in the room, Abbey stopped and stared into one particular mirror with acute interest. “Hey Ron!” she hollered, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her head. “Come here an’ look at this would ya?” Dutifully, Ron traversed the room, climbing up to where she had reached and looked in. He saw no reflection at all, and for a moment he wondered if it was perhaps glass and not mirror they were looking at. It appeared to be another room, although this one was devoid of any clutter whatsoever. “Look familiar?”

   He looked over at her, then back into the frame, screwing his brow up. It did sort of ring a bell with him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. After a moment though Abbey gave him the answer anyway. “I think it’s the school entrance hall,” she whispered, not taking her eyes from the image before them. “If you crane your neck you can kinda see the stairway.”

   Ron’s mouth fell slightly open, and he craned his neck in the direction she was indicating. There it was, the staircase where that idiot Bobby Mayhew had thrown the ball at them. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

   He reached out for the mirror’s surface, but stopped short. “Do you think...we could go through or something?”

   “It could be the way out,” Abbey said as her eyes lit up. She beamed at him, took his hand and squeezed it. “Let’s test it!” She grabbed her trainer and yanked it off her foot. Gingerly she moved it towards the vision of the hall, and where it should have touched the mirror it rippled like a pond and pushed through. They both inhaled in excited trepidation, and she snapped the shoe back, took aim, and threw as hard as she could manage.

   Ron watched elated as it barely slowed at all as it hit the barrier, then landed on the polished wooden floor of the entrance hall and skidded a good ten feet before coming to a halt. “YES!” he yelled and grabbed Abbey by the shoulders. “You did it, this is the way out.”

But Abbey’s face fell. Ron frowned, that wasn’t the response he’d expected.

   “What if...” she started slowly. “It’s like the mirror with the stone. It’s just showing us what we want. And then it’ll eat us like that one did to Bellatrix?” Ron dropped his hands, and a wave of frustration swept over him. That would never have occurred to him, and he was almost angry at Abbey for suggesting it. He knew she could be right, but he just wanted to get out of there so badly he didn’t want to stop and think. This looked good so he was going to chance it.

   “The shoe’s okay,” he pointed out, making her raise an eyebrow.

   “Yeah but the shoe ain’t alive pumpkin.”

   He held up his hands and closed his eyes, fighting against the headache that was rising in him once again. “How about I go through first? I’ll have a quick poke about, and give you the thumbs up when I haven’t been eaten. Then you can go get A.J. and follow me through.”

   “You wanna split up?” she asked in a small voice.

   “Only for a minute,” he assured her. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

   There was definitely a part of his brain though that was screaming it could very well not be all fine. That Abbey could be right, that he could be throwing himself unwittingly to an early death.

   The weariness was too great. Most of his brain couldn’t care less and was gearing up at the first real chance they had found at escape. “I’ll see you on the other side.” And before she could talk him out of it, he jumped.

   The mirror’s surface was cool, and did indeed feel like the membrane of a watery depth. But as soon as he was passed it, no water held him and gravity took hold as usual. He crashed to the floor, rolling ungracefully until coming to a halt on his back, arms and legs splayed outwards. He took deep lungfulls of air drenched in humidity, the tang of foreign soil hanging on it like perfume. When he had the strength to lift his head, Ron could see he was certainly in the hall they had passed through several hours ago. An emotional cry escaped his throat, and grinning he looked back to where he’d just arrived from.

   On this side, the mirror looked like a regular mirror. He watched his grin soften into a small smile, and his hand reach out to touch the reflective surface. It was hard.

   “I think you can come through,” he said to himself, hoping Abbey could still see him on the other side. He gave a thumbs up as well just in case. He figured it would take her a good few minutes to fetch A.J., but uneasiness tingled in belly as the seconds turned into minutes.

   To distract himself, he turned from the mirror and retrieved Abbey’s white trainer from where it had landed earlier. There was no longer a comforting pool of sunlight falling on the hall’s floor as it had done before, and as Ron moved over to the windows he could see almost nothing but dark night sky. It appeared that the storm that had been growling since his arrival had broken with tremendous force, and rain was now lashing down the window panes, making it impossible for him to see any more than a few feet outside of the building. Thunder boomed through the walls, vibrations rumbling through the floor and up Ron’s legs. He took a few steps back from the windows.

   There was a clatter from the top of the stairs and Ron spun round instinctively. A couple of older students were either side a small group of what had to be first years, and they were tumbling through the doors on the higher level, a chair and vase of flowers crashing to the ground as they did. All were facing the way they’d come, wands brandished, fear on their faces.

   “Get downstairs!” screeched a Chinese looking girl to the rest, and her fellow older student began herding the younger ones down. The girl fired several spells at the door, then hurtled down the steps after them. The older student in the lead, a tall fair haired boy, had a torn sleeve and blood running down his arm.

   “What are you doing!” he yelled when he caught sight of Ron standing in the middle of the floor. “They’re right behind us, why haven’t you evacuated!”

   Ron felt his mouth fall open as they neared the base of the staircase. “Evacuated?” he repeated incredulously. What in the Fairying Forrest could possibly have happened now?

   “Didn’t you hear the alarms?” cried the girl authoritatively as they landed on the floor. “Get out now!” And without a second glace they pounded over to the entrance doors, flung them open, and sprinted out into the pouring rain. Ron became aware his chest was heaving and his heart was thumping. He looked back up the stairs in trepidation, and was horrified to see they were vibrating every few seconds. Someone was trying to get through.

   The sound of the rain had engulfed the echoing entrance hall, and it bounced off the walls as Ron backed away once more to the mirror. A gargoyle, the one they had escaped behind to get down into the tunnels before, was stood not far off from the mirror gateway, and Ron stationed himself behind it. The stone shape mostly hid him from anyone coming down the stairs, and he hoped if they were distracted (whoever ‘they’ were) they wouldn’t notice him.

   He held his hands up in front of the mirror, in what he hoped was a gesture that read ‘don’t come through yet, apparently there are nutters on the loose’. This definitely has to be the real world, Ron thought to himself as the rain smattered on the flagstones by the door. He just didn’t have the energy to conjure up any more disasters that could happen to them.

   The doors at the top of the stairs splintered and swung open, bringing with them the shouts of several, fully grown, definitely British individuals. Ron shrunk behind his goblin, bringing his arms in but still opening his palms. Don’t come through now he prayed.

   “Get outta my way!” barked one of the people up above to another. “They’ll have got away by now!”

   “It’s not my fault!” snapped back another voice as the group, of about half a dozen from what Ron could see, hammered down the steps and out the front door. Before they left he got a good look at their clothing, but really a glimpse was all he needed. Death Eaters.

Death Eaters. Voldemort’s minions. How could they be here, why? This was the other side of the world, what were they doing, were they attacking the school? Ron swallowed, and squeezed his fingernails into his palms. He’d exhausted all his incredulity. He knew they were here because he was here. He knew it was connected to Rodriguez and the stone, he just didn’t know exactly why.

   He turned back to the mirror, seeing his pale and frightened reflection. He really hoped Abbey and A.J. were waiting for his signal on the other side, so he gave it.

   A bare leg, followed by one covered in denim, slowly slid their way out through the mirror’s surface. The bodies of Abbey and A.J. were not far behind, and eventually they found themselves stood in the humid air of the draughty entrance hall, sucking in breaths of relief. “Why did we have to wait?” asked A.J., gripping onto Abbey for support.

   Ron looked warily over his shoulder but no one else had appeared. “Some students ran through,” he explained, trying not to let himself shake too much. “They said the school had been evacuated. And then...then some Death Eaters chased after them.”

   Abbey’s face froze in a look that suggested passing out was not beyond the realm of possibility. “What are...Death Eaters,” said A.J. slowly.

   “The Wizarding version of the SS,” Abbey told him through clenched teeth. “Though not quite so cute an’ cuddly.”

   “You-Know-Who’s followers,” Ron added for clarification. “Have you still got the stone?” A.J. nodded and fished it out of his pocket. Ron felt like his mind was skipping every which way without much consideration for clarity or relationship of subject matter. But his basic train of thought had been there was no way he’d shown up, found the stone, and these Death Eaters weren’t here for both. “Would you mind if I took it?”

   A.J. shook his head and placed it in his hand.

   “Be my guest.”

   Ron secured it in his pocket with a nod, then turned towards the front door. “We should get back to the car,” he said.

   Abbey shook her head. “Surely we should get that thing to Crabapple ‘fore it causes any more trouble.”

   Ron looked at her, then back out the door into the rain. “Yeah,” he said, unconvinced. “Of course, let’s do that.” But why was his gut screaming at him to head back to the car? He would end up there eventually, he told himself. It was probably just his overwhelming desire to get back home that was driving him there. “Here,” he said aloud to Abbey, handing her her trainer that he’d been cradling. “Let’s go before any more Death Eaters show up.”

   “Amen sugar,” said Abbey, thrusting her foot back into the battered shoe whilst A.J. balanced on Ron. “Shall we try Crabapple’s office?”

   Ron shook his head. “Those kids said the school had been evacuated. Do you have a place where you meet in emergencies?” They often ran drills at Hogwarts where all the classes would empty out onto the grass near the forest, ensuring they knew what to do in the event of a fire, or more likely, when one of Hagrid’s so called ‘pets’ got themselves loose and decided it wanted to make friends.

   “The Quodpot Stadium,” said Abbey. “I know a way between the Divination buildings and Sophomore dorms. Let’s go.”

   A.J. looked faintly green, but with determination the three students set off, creeping up to the front door where the rain was still thrashing down. They peered around the edges of the door frame, trying to see what was happening out in the main concourse. The rainwater was unlike anything Ron had ever seen before; huge, powerful droplets smashing into the ground, spraying metallic tasting mist back up into the air. It was so heavy Ron could still only make vague shapes out once he tried looking more than eight or ten meters, but there were so many shapes hurtling about he could pretty much guess what was going on. Students were screaming and running in every direction, spells trying to fire through the falling water. There were figures strewn on the cobblestones and in the muddy grass – some could only have been half Ron’s size, and he prayed silently they were no more than unconscious.

   “C’mon,” hissed Abbey, and with deep breaths they plunged out into the storm, the rain drops forcefully hitting Ron’s face giving him a much needed wake up call. Keep alert, he told himself. This is almost over, just keep moving.

   He and Abbey both had their wands out, but they made it to the alley way between the buildings without incident. Their feet splashed the puddles back up their legs as they stumbled on, terror and fatigue threatening to take their steps out from under them.

   As they reached the end of the alley way, a large figure stepped in front of them from the open space, blocking the way out. The trio came to a halt, Ron and Abbey raising their wands protectively. Friend or foe, thought Ron desperately, friend or foe?

     “Miss Preston?” came a voice floating over the torrent. Ron felt Abbey’s whole demeanour deflate by his side.

   “Professor Crabapple,” she breathed in harrowed relief, lowering her wand and rushing towards the woman. Ron could see now, if he shielded his eyes with his hand, the outline of the imposing Salem Headmistress, water running from her features as if she were standing beneath some invisible shower.

   “Oh Abigail,” she cried, and threw her arms around her as she began to shake. “I’ve been so worried, where on Earth have you been?”

   “Rodriguez,” she croaked as A.J. dropped his arm around Ron’s shoulders again, letting him take some of his weight. “He attacked us, in the locker room, an’ we found all these crazy obstacles under the school, an’ a dog, an’ there was fire, an’ water, an’ big swingin’ things, an’ a witch named Bellatrix killed Chris!” Her pitch had become quite hysterical and Ron was concerned she might need to breathe more if she was going to stay conscious.

   Crabapple stared at them in horror. “My Lord, this is a disaster.”

   “Bellatrix is dead,” A.J. told the older woman. “But we don’t know what happened to Rodriguez.”

   “Yes, well, we’ll deal with that in due course,” she told them. “But first, Ronald Weasley, you must give me the Sorcerer’s Stone immediately.” Ron blinked through the rainwater.

   “The stone?” he asked confused.

   “Yes,” she replied, earnestly. “You do have it don’t you? I thought-”

   “We didn’t even mention the stone,” said A.J. warily as Abbey let go of her teacher and frowned at her.

   “Ronald,” Crabapple said, smiling as the rain streamed through her tangled curls and down her shoulders. “A witch such as myself has picked up a few tricks along the way. The power it’s radiating, it would be hard for me not to sense it was here. You’ve done incredibly well to retrieve it – but then I guess it’s not the first time something like this has happened to you now is it?”

   Ron shifted his weight as two drenched students ran past the ally way exit without even the slightest pause. “No,” he agreed, “it’s not.” He resisted the urge to reach into his pocket and hold the stone for comfort. “Funny that.”

   “Don’t you see?” she asked him earnestly, taking a step forward. “This is why you were brought here – of all the universes you could have travelled to you arrived in the one where you were needed most. Your friend Harry experienced the same thing by all accounts.”

   Ron stared at the woman, not caring if his mouth was hanging open. He roused himself to spit out the rainwater and speak to her. “How could you possibly know all that? I don’t even really know all that.”

   “It’s okay,” she told him kindly, resting her hand on her ample chest. “I’ve been doing everything in my power to find a way to send you home – I’ve garnered all I can, there’s a wealth of information if you just look hard enough.” She tried to shake the water from her hair and took another step towards him and A.J. Abbey stood where she was, a frown still dominating her features. “These leaps, they have a way of pulling people in the right direction, I think. You and the Harry Potter of your world, you were the light in the dark, leading those around you to their destinies.”

   Ron blinked the water from his eyes and shivered as his stomached turned again. What utter codswallop, he thought.

   “Okay,” was what he said out loud. “So I was meant to come here and find the stone – why? I thought there was that prophecy where I was the king and all that, are you telling me that’s going on at the same time?”

   A.J. was tremendously heavy on his shoulder, slipping downwards on his sopping shirt, but he dug deep and shrugged him upwards again. Crabapple held her hands up as if she were about to launch into a sermon; Ron was sure he didn’t remember her being this airy-fairy in her office.

   “Your fate is intertwining,” she said rapturously. “I believe you were meant to find the stone so we may keep it safe, use it as a weapon.” She pointed to him animatedly. “This stone, this is the instrument, this is how we will rule!”

   “Rule?” piped up Abbey. “A weapon? How’ll it do that? Ron said only somebody who _didn’t_ wanna use the stone could get it out of the mirror?”

   “Precisely,” beamed the Headmistress. “That’s why it had to be you, Ron, Bellatrix would never have found it. Please, I implore you to let me have it.”

   Ron shook his head as the pounding got worse.

   “Did Rodriguez know that?” Ron looked at A.J. as he spoke, as he stood on his own two feet and stared at Crabapple. “Did he know Ron had to get the stone...did you...did you send him after us?”

   Crabapple didn’t move a muscle, not one change altered her expression or stance, save a small smile that twitched uncomfortably at her face. “Give me the stone Ron,” she said evenly. But Ron stepped backwards, giving into the urge to grab the stone in his pocket, his wand gripped by his side.

   “He attacked us,” he spluttered. “He chased us, he could have really hurt us – why didn’t you just ask us to go down there if you needed us for crying out loud!”

   “I didn’t send Professor Rodriguez after you,” she said sternly, her eyes blazing. “That was Bellatrix’s idea, and a very poor one at that.”

   Ron felt something crush inside of him – dissolve, die. His knees felt like they would buckle if he didn’t stop them. “How do you know it was Bellatrix’s idea?” he whispered; it was more of a plea than a question.

   Crabapple sighed, rolled her eyes and pointed her wand directly at Ron’s chest. “Because she always wants all the glory,” she told them, exasperated.

   That was it then, thought Ron as Abbey grabbed the wall of the building with one hand and covered her mouth with the other. Everyone was out to get them, no one was on their side.

   “I didn’t want it to come to this!” cried Crabapple in frustration. “I tried playing along so we could go our separate ways, but you had to push it.” She shook her head in a gesture of genuine disappointment. “Why couldn’t you have just given me the stone?”

   “What are you going to do with it?” Ron asked her futilely, holding his wand resolutely up. She wasn’t getting it without a fight, that was for sure.

   “He has a plan,” she said, glowing, her eyes reaching with her hands to the towering heavens. “There is a battle raging on a plain of existence we cannot comprehend, and my master knows there is another like him there, a version that has all but died at the hands of your Harry, the traveller from another world. It is they who are destined to fight this battle, and once the worlds collapse and all becomes one, it is my master who will have the stone to return this king of all kings to his former glory. We will be victorious!”

   Another Voldemort. In a different universe – _no!_ Ron’s head was swimming. That’s not what she said, she said different _plain of existence._

   “Limbo,” said Ron, breathing in and out as evenly as he could. In the hall of mirrors, when he’d passed out, he’d seen something, he knew all this – _how_ did he know all this! “You want the stone, to help the You-Know-Whos in Limbo.”

   “What?” whispered A.J. in his ear.

   Crabapple blinked. “You-Know- _Whos?”_ she repeated.

   “How could you?” Abbey was sobbing, her wand raised at her headmistress. “How could you do this to us? Your kids? I saw babies, sixth graders, on the ground-”

Crabapple seemed to double in size. “There was no need for _any of it!”_ she roared. “It could have been so simple, but you and Lestrange ruined it all!”

   Abbey stopped crying immediately, and took a step away from the wall. “You dare,” she growled, her eyes wide and her hand steady. “Compare us to that _MURDERER?_ I can’t believe I ever looked up to you, you cowardly excuse for a woman. If you want that stone you will have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers, YOU HEAR ME!”

   Ron gasped as Crabapple rose her wand and slammed Abbey back into the wall in a shower of red light.

   “Abbey!” A.J. cried out as best he could.

   “Red spell,” uttered Ron. “Not dead.” But not moving either. The cheerleader was curled up on the ground like a sleeping child.

   In an instant Crabapple’s wand was pointed at the boys, struggling to stand in the drenching rain. Ron was seriously concerned about how much blood A.J. was losing, but then, he reasoned, that might be a moot point in a minute or two.

   “So,” he said, stalling. “You want the stone, to help the sort-of-dead You-Know-Who from my world?” He wished his head would stop throbbing so he could remember how he knew that. And that there were two Voldemorts, the one from Malfoy’s world too. They were in Limbo, weren’t they?

   “My master has many prophets and seers,” breathed Crabapple reverently. “There will be a great battle in the in between plain, but the Dark Lord’s counterpart is weakened, and it is foretold that there is an object here to aid him, an object _the lost child_ will bring with him!”

   “Lost child?” repeated Ron. “Me? But, I didn’t bring the stone, I just found it.”

   Crabapple waved her hand. “The wording’s always fuzzy in these things, it says you have the item that needed to sway the battle, what else could that be but the stone?”

   That was it. That was all it took. Ron felt like he’d been struck by lightning. What other item could sway the battle – not _for_ Voldemort though, but _against_ him.

   After all, the wording of these things were always a little fuzzy.

   “Oh Seamus.” Ron managed a little laugh, and A.J. looked at him like he was crazy. “Kill the hat,” he said. “With magic fire. Simple.”

 

***

 

   Harry could taste blood in his mouth. His eyelids were prickly and didn’t want to open, and his throat felt like a swollen cactus.

   It was a while before he could reconcile his mind with his body. Nothing seemed connected, and until he could open his eyes he had no sight to help him. A noise reverberated behind his teeth, and after a time he was able to squirm.

   He was sat on something hard, his whole body ached, and his hands were definitely tied behind his back.

   “Damn,” he said, his voice echoing in his own head. He screwed up his eyes and eventually managed to ease them open. He was indeed sat on a floor, a wooden floor that, if he was not very much mistaken, was rocking back and forth ever so slightly. Draco was by his side, still unconscious, and they were bound and secured to a barrel that must have been filled with something incredibly heavy from the way it failed to move when Harry pulled against it.

   They were in a small, very basic room, nothing more than four wooden walls and a plain wooden door with sunshine streaming around the edges of it. Dust danced in the beams, but other than that there was no real light. Harry’s heart was thumping so loudly he struggled to hear anything above it, but after a while he felt maybe he could detect the sound of water. Were they on a boat?

   “Hmunun,” mumbled Draco. Harry nudged him with his shoulder.

   “Draco,” he hissed. “Wake up, we’ve been taken prisoner.”

   Gradually, Draco peeled his eyes open, blinking and grimacing.

   “Wha-” he uttered, looking around the bare room. “Wusgoinon?”

   Harry licked his lips. “We got attacked,” he said, trying to make out any more details in the small room, but the light shafts didn’t really show much. It was still very hot, and he wondered if they were still in the jungle. “You killed the priestess, lifted her curses, but I saw a man creeping up on you.” He shifted his weight painfully. “Tried to warn you, but it was too late, he hit you, then me.”

   “Then we woke up here?” finished Draco. Harry nodded. “Where exactly _is_ here, if I may ask?”

   Harry twisted his wrists against the chaffing rope. “A boat?” he said, voicing his guess out loud. “We seem to be swaying.”

   “Was he Rhansyk?” asked Draco.

   “Who?”

   “The man,” he furthered. “That hit us.”

   “Oh,” said Harry, pulling uselessly against the barrel again. “No, he was-”

   At that moment the wooden door banged open, and sunlight overwhelmed the boys. A huge shape of a man filled the frame, and it took a moment before Harry could see his features.

   “Him. He was him.”

   The man was a great hulk of muscles with shoulder length blond hair, blue eyes, a studded wood and metal helmet, red tunic, leather sandals and a brown cape that fell to his knees. Everything in Harry cried ‘Viking!’ at him, but he was in Limbo and he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. He was however the same man that he’d see knock out him and Draco.

   “They are awake!” called the man over his shoulder, folding his arms and looking down at Harry and Draco.

   Harry shifted uncomfortably against his ropes, and decided against saying anything. A short, squat man in chainmail, a domed silver helmet with horns either side and fury boots peeked from behind the big man, his eyes roaming over the boys.

   “Hello there,” he chirped, and took a swig from a wine skin. “Arnthor says you’re awake.”

   Harry raised his eyebrows at Draco who was squinting in the sunlight. “We are,” he said. “Who are you and why have you tied us up?”

   “Silence boy,” boomed the big man, Arnthor, but the little man tottered around him and into the room.

   Behind them Harry could now see part of a boat deck, and jungle whizzing past on the river banks. Men were rowing in unison, shouting _“HEAVE!”_ with every stroke.

   “Now, now,” the little man admonished. “That’s a good couple of questions he’s asked there.” He took another swig from his skin, then pointed it at the big man. “This is Arnthor, and I am Falkor, and you are on our lovely boat, sailing off into the horizon to adventures unknown.”

   “We were already on an adventure,” snapped Draco. “A bloody important one, why did you knock us out?”

   The man with the wine, Falkor, narrowed his eyes at Draco. “You,” he said, pointing the skin at him and Harry. “Are not from around here.”

   Harry sensed caution would be good. “No,” he said. “We’re not. We got chased into the jungle by some hyenas.”

   “Ah,” said Falkor as if he was intrigued, but Harry had a feeling he was putting on a show. “And where were you before that?”

   Harry wasn’t sure what to say, they could very easily incriminate themselves with these men if they said the wrong thing now. “On a mountain,” he said eventually.”

   “And before that?”

   “A campsite?” said Draco, but Falkor shook his hands impatiently.

   “No, no, no,” he said crossly. “None of that matters, that’s not what I’m getting at at all.”

   Arnthor considered the boys, his big arms still folded. “He means before the world found its new face, where were you then?”

   Harry swallowed. “Er?”

   “The old world!” cried Falkor, stamping his foot in annoyance that Harry and Draco had not answered his questions properly. “You are human, I can see it, you are not of Limbo, you are body _and_ mind!”

   Harry felt his wrists chafing on the rope and his tender nose from Arnthor’s hit to the face. He was very aware of how much he was body as well as mind. “Yes,” he said, “we’re from the real world, we were brought here.”

   “So,” snapped Draco. “What does that matter?”

   Falkor gave them a look of bewildered excitement. “This realm has been my home for _centuries,”_ he said breathlessly. “And no one of flesh and bone has _ever_ come into our midst!”

   “You are a rare commodity,” said Arnthor sombrely.

   Harry took a moment to understand what he meant. “Commodity?” he repeated. “You assaulted and kidnapped us, because you think we’re valuable?”

   “You’re going to _sell_ us!” cried Draco in horror.

   “To the highest bidder,” replied Falkor gleefully.

   Harry was speechless. “But,” he spluttered. “We’re trying to save the whole Multiverse!” he cried, appalled. “That’s why we’re in Limbo, to defeat the Voldemorts, stop them from ruining everything!”

   The Viking shrugged. “Don’t know anything about that.”

   “Well we’re telling you!” yelled Draco. “We have to do this, no one else can, you’re putting the whole of existence in danger!”

   Falkor looked confused. “But you’re possibly the rarest thing in this entire realm,” he said jovially. “I already have several interested parties who have small fortunes they’re willing to pay for you.”

   Harry shook his head. “You can just let us go, it’s okay, we can carry on in the jungle, there’s still time-”

   “Silence!” threatened Arnthor. “Enough talking, you will remain here until we make port, then you will be sold.”

   “I’m sure your buyers will be very nice,” said Falkor genuinely.

   Draco glared impressively at both the Vikings, but Harry felt too sick to put that much energy into anything but worrying.

   “See you later!” cried Falkor as they backed away and shut the door again.

   The boys sat in stunned silence for a moment. “This cannot be happening,” said Draco eventually.

   “I can’t believe it,” agreed Harry numbly. “How can they be so stupid, so selfish?”

   Draco looked around, straining against his ropes. “Can you see Ric’s sword?” he asked suddenly concerned. “I don’t have it anymore.”

   Harry had not minded in the slightest that it had been Draco who had been bestowed with the Sword of Gryffindor. It had been very handy when he’d needed to stick it into the Basilisk, but other than that, he was pretty clueless on how to use it, whereas Draco was a master swordsman. But the news that someone else had taken it from both of them sent such a flurry of jealous fury through his guts he swore he almost ripped out of his ropes entirely.

   Instead he let out a cry of rage and slammed his feet onto the wooden floor. “We have to get out of here,” he snarled. “We have to get the sword back, jump overboard and get back on track.”

   “Can you reach your wand?” Draco asked, squirming already to presumably try and find his. Harry eased his hands up and down, left and right. He could feel his wand in his back pocket, and could just about brush it with a knuckle, but that didn’t do him much good. At least the Vikings had not taken them too, maybe they didn’t know about magic?

   “No,” he said, “but where’s yours? Maybe I could get that instead?”

   “Under my shirt,” grunted Draco, trying to move around to face away from him. “In my jeans.” Harry wiggled his fingers around, but he couldn’t seem to move the fabric up enough.

   “Keep still,” he said.

   “I am,” replied Draco.

   “What are you two up to?”

   Harry’s head snapped up to look above the barrel to see a red snout, cobalt blue eyes and a creased little forehead looking down at him.

   _“Puff!”_ cried Draco incredulously. He was right, it was the small, chubby dragon that had appeared out of the tent with Draco, Alex and Seamus, the one Harry had given the purple amulet to. “What are you-, how did you-”

   “All the wrong questions,” said Puff impatiently, gripping the edge of the barrel then disappearing from sight. “Stupid boys, not worth nuggets, I should just go home, poor Teddy needs me...”

   “Hang on,” interrupted Draco. “Wait, are you here to help us? Did Godric send you?”

   Puff’s smirking face reappeared. “Ye-es,” he said, giving the word far too many syllables. “That horrid Watcher promised more nuggets for helping.” He licked his lips and rubbed his hands together.

   “Alex is okay?” asked Draco excitedly. “What about Hermione, did they get back to the campsite, are they alive?”

   Puff rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what a Herminy is, but the tall annoying one made me come, so yes he is alive. Do you want my expertise or not?”

   Harry was so grateful he could have kissed his scaly face. “Yes!” he cried. “Cut us loose, get us out of here!”

   Puff hopped down off the barrel and strolled in front of them, his hands clasped behind his back. “Well, well,” he said in a superior tone. “Quite a pickle you’ve got yourself in.”

   “Puff,” growled Draco. “Do you want your treasure or not?”

   Puff seemed to seriously consider this. “Want,” he decided eventually, nipped behind Harry’s back, and flashed out with his claws.

   “Ouch,” cried Harry, snatching his hands back as the ropes fell away, but left several pink scratch marks on his wrists and forearms.

   “Oops,” said Puff with a grin and slashed at Draco’s bonds with much the same result. “Time to leave!”

   He bounced back up onto the large barrel and began pulling at the lid, but before Harry could work out what he was doing Draco stopped him. “We’re not going anywhere without Godric’s sword,” he said, already headed to the door, peeking through the gaps into the sunshine.

   Puff froze. “What?” he said.

   “The Sword of Gryffindor,” explained Draco, still looking through the gap. “They took it from me.”

   The little dragon looked appalled. “You let them _take_ your treasure?” he asked, aghast.

   “We didn’t let them do anything,” snapped Harry defensively. He went over by Draco and tried to peer through the wooden door too. He could only see a sliver of deck and blue skies, but no one seemed to be out there. “They knocked us out.”

   Puff tutted. “Typical.”

   Harry ignored him. If he was here to get them off the boat, then fine. But that didn’t mean they had to listen to his bickering. “It could be anywhere,” said Harry, removing his wand and unlocking the door.

   “Anywhere but here,” said Draco, indicating the room. “Let’s go.”

   He eased the door open slightly, and Harry’s eyes protested greatly at the flood of sunshine hitting them. They were in a little well with stairs leading up a couple of steps onto the deck where the men were rowing, loud and sweaty and totally involved in what they were doing. Almost all of them had their backs to the boys, but the large Viking Arnthor was at the front, shouting instructions at them to keep them in time.

   Harry ducked down and Draco did the same. “He’ll see us,” he said, looking around for some form of cover. “Or he’ll spot the door’s open.”

   “Puff,” hissed Draco. “Come out here and shut the door, quietly!”

   There was a moment of silence. “No,” came the reply from the darkness.

   _“Puff,”_ growled Draco with purpose, and after a second the little dragon came edging out, and eased the door shut behind him.

   “He never said anything about going outside,” Puff whined, but again Harry ignored him.

   “We can take them,” he said. “They mustn’t know about magic, or they’d have taken our wands, we’ll have the element of surprise.”

   Draco looked dubious. “But they’ll have the element of largeness,” he replied.

   A faint shout drew their attention, and the boys froze, their eyes looking up above the well.

   “-think you can do better?” a voice came drifting up. “You try!”

   “I will!” came another voice. Both of them were male, but not that old from the sounds of it. Maybe even the same age as Harry and Draco. A shrill yelp came flying through the air, followed by laughter and something heavy thumping to the floor.

   “Ain’t fair!” cried the second boy. “It’s cursed, we should throw it overboard!”

   “You can pick it up,” said a different voice again. “Then you can chuck it.”

   “Or kick it!” chimed in a forth. Something went scraping across the deck to a round of applause, and Harry and Draco shrank back towards the door.

   Harry raised an eyebrow at Draco, but he seemed to have less of a clue what was going on that he did. “We need to move,” he whispered. “Get the upper hand before we attack.”

   Draco nodded and jerked his head to the left of the stairs, away from where the hooting voices were coming from. A wooden railing ran alongside the steps up and around the welled area, so Draco grabbed Puff, who had the sense not to protest too loudly, under the arms and plonked him on the deck through the barrier. Then he and Harry seized the wooden beam and swung themselves up, crouching on the deck to check they weren’t being watched. Luckily, Arnthor was berating a crewman for not keeping up with the others, so Harry and Draco snuck around to the next level of the deck unnoticed.

   Up behind the room where they’d been held captive, there was a gaggle of boys under the great red and white striped sail, shoving each other, shouting and pointing at something on the ground. “You do it!” yelled one of them giddily, jostling a skinny boy with red hair. They were too wrapped up in their business to notice what Harry, Draco and Puff were doing, which at the moment was just standing there.

   “But it hurts you!” he protested, pushing back.

   “Wimp!” accused a bigger boy with freckles. Then the others started to chant. “Wimp, wimp, wimp!”

   “Alright!” shouted the redhead crossly, and dove into the middle of the circle. Harry only managed to catch a glimpse of metal before the boy squealed, dropped what he’d tried to pick up, and all the boys laughed again.

   “Stupid bit of junk!” he barked, nursing his left hand, and swung out with his foot.

   The Sword of Gryffindor came sailing out of the crowd, and came to a halt between Harry, Draco and Puff, and the teenage Vikings. They gawped at them.

   “That’s them prisoners!” said the big boy slightly dumfounded as Harry and Draco raised their wands.

   “How’d they get out?” asked the redhead.

   “Who cares!” the big boy shouted. “Get ‘em!”

   “Wait!” bellowed Harry, levelling his wand, and the tone of his voice must have been impressive because the dozen or so teenage boys stopped on cue. “Don’t come any closer!”

   “Or you’ll what?” demanded the one who had goaded the redhead. “Poke us with your sticks?”

   Harry raised an eyebrow. _“Deprimo!”_ he proclaimed, conjuring a powerful gust of wind that blasted across the deck and threw the boys several feet in the air. “Get the sword!”

   But Draco was already darting over the deck, and scooped it up in his hand.

   “Look out!” yelped Puff, seizing Harry’s jeans. He spun around just in time.

   _“Protego!”_ he said, throwing up a shield. Arnthor’s sword rebounded and sent the larger Viking stumbling backwards.

   “How did you get free!” bemoaned Falkor, cowering around the railings on the well.

   “What sorcery do you wield!” raged Arnthor, righting himself again. “Speak, devil human!”

   “He’s got the sword,” said the bigger boy. He’d only spoken quietly, but everybody stopped and stared at Draco.

   “How’d you do that!” screeched the redhead.

   Draco looped the sword around his head, and pointed it at the boys who’d managed to get back on their feet. Their eyes widened at the razor sharp point.

   “Because this sword was given to me,” said Draco softly. “Not you, not any of you.”

   “And now we’ll be leaving with it,” said Harry, addressing everyone surrounding them. “Isn’t that right Puff?”

   Puff made a sort of high-pitched yelp that Harry took to mean yes. He wasn’t sure exactly how they’d be leaving, but Puff had seemed pretty confident when they’d been back in the little wooden room.

   He wasn’t the only one to consider this though. “Good luck wizards,” laughed Arnthor, folding his muscular arms. “These waters will swallow you whole, and the mighty Falkor will pluck the blade from your corpses stricken on the shores and sell you for taxidermy!”

   “Yeah!” crowed Falkor, raising his fist from his hiding place behind the wooden railings.

   Draco backed up towards Harry and Puff again. “We’ll see,” he said. “But for now, we’re leaving.”

   Puff blew a raspberry from behind the boys legs.

   “Hey,” cried the redhead, causing Harry and Draco to look over. He was holding the sheath Harry had conjured for Godric’s sword, and threw it in a looping arch so Draco caught it with his free hand.

   The bigger boy with freckles punched him on the shoulder. “What you do that for!”

   “He should have it,” replied the redhead defensively, rubbing his arm. “It didn’t burn him.”

   “Puff,” said Harry as the Vikings closed in. “What now?”

   The little dragon tutted. “Back to the barrel,” as if it was perfectly obvious.

   “Right,” said Harry, nodding like he knew what he was doing. “Okay then, excuse us gents.”

   They began edging towards where Falkor was perched behind the railings, but Arnthor lunged forward with a roar and his sword. Draco met the volley with the clang of metal on metal, and Harry flashed out with an _“Accio sword!”_

   The big Viking jerked in shock as his sword flew from his hand to Harry’s, and the boys made a break for it. The crew all started clamouring for them, bellowing and waving weapons, but Harry threw a shield around them as they ran.

   “Go, go, go!” he called as Draco jumped back down into the well and wrenched the door to their previous jail room open. Knives and oars came raining down on them, but Puff scampered through the door and Harry slammed it shut.

   _“Colloportus!”_ he cried to lock it.

   “Now what!” demanded Draco as the door shuddered and the Vikings cursed their names.

   Puff waddled over to the barrel the boys had been tied to, and leisurely climbed up it.

   “In your own time,” griped Draco, his eyes darted between him and the door being thumped on.

   Puff sighed dramatically, dug his claws into the lid, and jumped into the air, ripping it from the main body. He chucked away the lid mid jump, then landed neatly on the lip, looking downwards. “Hurry up,” he said impatiently, then dropped inside the barrel.

   Harry stared. He was pretty sure his mouth was open. “We,” he said, discarding Arnthor’s sword. “Are in big trouble.”

   “What _are_ you waiting for?” called out Puff’s voice, but it sounded far away and echoey. Draco looked at Harry, and shrugged. The boys dashed over and peered inside the barrel, except what they were looking at was not the inside of a barrel. It was a ladder, down into a sewer.

   “What the-?” spluttered Harry, but the door gave a splintering crack.

   “No time,” said Draco, slapping the belt and sheath around his waist and sliding the sword back in place. “Let’s go.”

   He swung his leg over awkwardly and began climbing down. Harry picked up the lid, and in attempt at subterfuge, laid it back on top after he had climbed in.

   The ladder was cold and slimy, and the smell coming from the waters below left a lot to be desired.

   “Won’t they just find a way to follow?” asked Harry, lighting his wand as he climbed down the rungs. “I mean I know they’re big, but those little ones could probably get through the barrel top too-”

   “What top?” drawled Puff. Harry and Draco looked back up, and saw nothing but brickwork above their heads.

   “Huh,” said Draco.

   “How did you do that?” asked Harry, doing his best not to slip on the metal bars. “What even did you do, where _are_ we?” He dropped the rest of the way to the floor. They were on a pathway that was running along the foul stream in the tunnel’s centre, and Puff was already waddling on ahead.

   “More wrong questions,” sighed the little dragon.

   “Where are you taking us?” Harry asked instead, marching to catch up with Puff who had got surprisingly far on his stubby dragon legs. Harry wondered if he ever even used his little wings.

   “Don’t know,” said Puff with a shrug. “You wanted off of the boat, you are now off the boat. What do you want now?”

   Draco had caught up to them both. “Can you take us to the Voldemorts?” he asked breathlessly, his pallor clear in Harry’s wand light.

   Puff stopped, and waddled around on the spot until he was facing the two boys. _“No-oo,”_ he spat out, again giving the word far too many syllables. “How stupid are you?”

   Harry sighed, exasperated, and threw out his hands, causing some rats to be startled by his flailing wand light. “Then what _can_ you do?” he demanded. “Because I feel like since everyone left us on that mountain ridge we’ve just been drifting aimlessly. Did Godric say exactly what you were supposed to be helping us _with?”_

   Puff raised a scaly eyebrow, rolled his shoulders, then spun around and scampered off on all fours.

   “Wait!” cried Draco as Harry cursed and the two of them chased after the little red dragon, who was surprisingly fast now he’d set his mind to it. Their footsteps echoed along the sewer as they ran, and Harry’s light bobbed most unhelpfully.

   “Oi!” cried Puff, and the boys skidded to a halt. Harry raised his wand, and saw that Puff had climbed halfway up another ladder leading to a trap door.

   The dragon waited. Harry looked at Draco, shrugged, and reached out to take the first rung. Puff smirked and carried on with his ascent.

   The trap door was in fact a man hole cover, and when Puff reached it he wedged his fat legs on the top rung, squared his shoulders under the metal disk, and grunted with his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to get the thing to budge.

   “Here,” said Harry. “Let me - _Wingardium Leviosa!”_

   The man hole cover flew off and Puff almost tumbled back down, but Harry was able to push him back upright in time. His scales were cool to the touch, which Harry had not been expecting.

   “I was just about to do that,” griped Puff, hoping up out of sight. Harry sighed, and poked his head out after the dragon.

   “Oh,” he couldn’t help but breath, like he’d been punched in the gut.

   “What?” asked Draco from below. “What is it?”

   Harry swallowed, and tried to put into words what he was seeing.

   “London,” he said eventually, climbing out of the hole. They were by the River Thames, it was night time and he could see the iconic Big Ben tower over the vast, churning waters. But this was not real London, or at least he hoped not.

   The city was burning.

   Office blocks raged with fire, and screams and sirens filled the air. People were running everywhere, along with just as many things that were definitely not people. Explosions peppered through the air, cars sat as black, burnt out husks of their former selves, and shadows skittered through the darkness.

   “Is this Hell?” Draco had emerged from the manhole and had his sword out again, tense with anticipation.

   “Pretty fires,” cooed Puff with delight, his fingers tapping together.

   They were by a wrought iron park bench on a little grassy verge. That itself was in front of a sleek silver building that was currently belching smouldering reams of A4 paper. There were no street lights, only the glow of the fires, so at present the trio were reasonably well hidden in shadow.

   “Puff, where have you taken us?” growled Harry. But the little dragon seemed unperturbed. He rocked back and sat on his fat behind, his forked tail swishing back and forth.

   “He’ll know where your bad men are,” he said, inspecting his claws.

   “He,” said Draco, stepping closer. “Who’s he?”

   Puff shrugged. “Important. The knight said he was there, on the mountain, that he’d lead you to them.”

   Harry’s insides rinsed with cold. “Jack,” he whispered, looking at Draco. “Jack the Ripper?”

   Draco’s mouth set in a very hard line. “The guy who hurt Hermione?”

   “He hurt a lot of women,” muttered Harry, looking around with an increased sense of fear. “So this is his territory, like the jungle and the priestess?” he asked, but even as he said it he wasn’t sure. This was modern London, Jack the Ripper had been alive a hundred years ago. “Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, more Victorian?”

   Puff sighed tragically. “I suppose you want to have a look around then?”

   “I think we should at least take cover,” said Draco, looking up the verge at the buildings. A battle was raging in the streets between the office blocks. From what Harry could tell mobsters were trying to defend themselves against Vietcong, Colonial soldiers and a Grecian catapult set up in a plaza near an ice cream stand.

   He was glad to see not every building was on fire though, it just seemed like that from the abundance of smoke and heat. And upon closer inspection he could see that there were in fact some people trying to stop the destruction by using the river water to douse the flames. Several hundred feet along the riverfront a line of wizards and witches were siphoning huge quantities of water from the Thames to dump onto shops and offices, while others protected them from a variety of people who were obviously quite happy to keep London burning.

   “Let’s move,” he said, heading along the pathway towards a cluster of trees slowly catching fire from the flaming paper. Harry gripped his wand, aware they were moving closer to the carnage, his senses on edge.

   Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for a soldier to leap out at them, dressed in a red tunic with a long gun and a sharp bayonet attached to it. The boys cried out and dived left and right as the soldier jabbed the blade at them and fired his weapon in a noisy cloud of smoke.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ yelled Harry, blasting the young man off his feet. Draco lunged forward and grabbed the gun from his hands, lowering his sword at the man’s throat.

   “Get lost,” he growled, and the man did as he was told. Harry barely saw him get to his feet though before he was grabbed from behind, lifted off the ground and thrown unceremoniously into one of the trees.

   “Argh!” he cried as he slammed into the trunk and crashed to the ground, landing painfully on his shoulder. He heard the giant roaring before he righted himself enough to see it, and rolled away on instinct just as it brought a spiked club down into the grass, tearing it up in muddy clumps.

   _“Confundo!”_ bellowed Harry, blasting the giant with a confusing spell that left it stumbling over its own feet.

   Draco scooped Harry up by his arm. “Come on!” he cried, pulling him into a run with Puff at their heels. They pelted through the trees and along a street between a sandwich shop and an estate agents. Youths with bandanas on their faces were smashing in windows of various different shops that lined the street, and luckily seemed more interested in the goods they found rather than Harry and Draco.

   The two boys legged it along another couple of streets, blasting away anyone who came near them. A malicious looking centaur aimed his bow and arrow at them as they turned a corner, but Draco yelled out a warning in time enough for them to dive into a record store. The sprinkler system was on attempting to put out several fires in the shop as they ran down the aisles, but Harry and Draco didn’t pause. They banged through the back door, into a store room full of boxes, then out through another door into the murky street.

   Harry spun and locked the door behind them, but he knew it wouldn’t last long against a centaur. “We have to-” he said, spinning back around, but the words caught in his throat.

   “Where are we?” said Draco. Harry looked left and right, taking in the greasy lamplight, coal-laced fog and encrusted, wonky cobblestones. “Whitechapel,” he said, real fear creeping around his heart. “Victorian Whitechapel.”

   “Is that a place?” asked Draco, taking a few steps forward with his sword aloft, before coming back. He began to cough, and quickly pulled his sleeve into his hand and pressed it against his mouth and nose. “What on Earth is that smell?” he cried, his voice muffled by the fabric.

   They were in a very narrow alleyway, only a couple dozen feet long, and shadows were whirring past at each end, swirling the miasma into leering tendrils of smoke and soot.

   “Part of London,” Harry whispered, sensing that the shadows were probably less than friendly. “Where Jack the Ripper lived.” Or at least committed all his crimes Harry thought to himself.

   Draco’s eyes grew wide above his sleeve. “Is he here?” he whispered down to Puff. “Have you brought us to him?”

   Puff though was back on all fours, hunched over like a dog on edge, twitching his head this way and that. “Can’t tell,” he hissed, eyes flickering. “There’s too much…stuff.”

   Harry’s breath caught in his throat as he looked up to see a shadow had become very still at the left hand entrance to the alleyway.   “We need to get out of here,” he said softly, his breath white in the cold night air. It was only then did he notice how numb his fingers had become.

   Suddenly the figure broke into a run, wailing inhumanly as it charged towards them. Harry let out a yell and blasted a spell at the creature before it got too near, but the damage was already done. Other shadows were stopping at both ends.

   Harry spun around and realised he was standing next to a gutter. He grabbed it with his free hand, and before he could reconsider he jammed his wand in his mouth, threw Puff over his shoulder, and began climbing the rickety old pipe as fast as he could.

   “Put me down!” wailed Puff as Harry practically jumped up the drain, heaving himself up several feet. “Unhand me human!” Harry ignored him.

“Faster!” yelled Draco, racing up the pipe below him as the shadows tore down the alley. Harry did one better. He stopped and pulled his wand from his teeth.

   _“Impedimenta!”_ he yelled, sweeping the approaching hoard back out the side street. He had trouble seeing clearly but Harry was pretty sure they were all Rhansyk. _“Confringo!”_ he added, pointing at the base of the drainpipe and causing it to burst into flames, hindering anyone from following them.

   “Nice work,” breathed Draco, clinging onto the rusty old pipe.

   Harry just nodded, and with Puff still complaining on his back, he continued up another story. Normally if he was up this high he would generally be riding a broom or looking out a window, not dangling from a wall with the very real threat of falling fast and hard, but he just concentrated on finding the joints in the pipe for him to grip on to.

   It shifted and both boys cried out.

   “Careful!” bleated Puff, digging his claws into Harry’s back. He looked down, and could just make out Rhansyk launching themselves over the flames, trying to grab onto the drainpipe. As Harry watched, one of them caught fire, and tore screaming from the flames as her stitches popped and frayed.

   He secured his feet around the pipe again, and began heaving himself and Puff upwards. The night may have been cold, but the exertion from climbing and heat from the flames below were causing sweat to trickle down his neck and back. Eventually he pulled them both dripping and panting over the edge of the building and onto the flat roof.

   Puff leapt for freedom as soon as Harry reached the top, clutching his chest and gasping for breath. “Could have killed me!” he squealed as Harry rolled on his back and breathed in the grimy air.

   “You’re welcome,” he said, staring at the cloudy night sky.

   Draco collapsed in a heap next to him. “I don’t think,” he said, after a few shaky breaths. “That I like Whitechapel.”

   The top of the drain pipe shook again, and despite his protesting limbs Harry scrambled to his feet. “Where now Puff?” he asked, looking around. They were four stories up, and a lot of the buildings around them were of a similar height. In typical London fashion though the buildings were all miss-matched and a number were a great deal taller or shorter than the flat roof they were currently running across.

   “I don’t know!” moaned Puff in his grating, nasal tone. “He said take you where you wanted to go, I did that! I want to go home, I don’t like it here, I _don’t like it!”_

   “Then you won’t get your treasure,” said Harry dispassionately as they reached another edge. From here they could look down into another alleyway and he could see gangs running after people, smashing up anything they could find and just generally terrorising the city streets. He checked behind his shoulder but no one else had managed to scale the pipe yet. “We need to find Jack,” said Harry to Draco. “He’ll lead us to the Voldemorts.”

   “Or just kill us,” replied Draco through clenched teeth. “We have to jump.”

   Without warning, he scooped Puff off the ground by his neck, and threw him like a bowling ball across to the next building a few feet away. The dragon shrieked loudly until he hit the roof and rolled in a little red ball to a stop.

   Draco jumped next, and Harry turned back just in time to see a Rhansyk man in green military attire pulling his torso up above the roofline. Harry skittered a few paces back, then sprinted towards the gap, just thinking of the few feet between him and the next roof, and not the great distance between him and the ground below.

   He soared over the gap, his arms flailing, but managed to clear it easily and hit the roof in a roll. Puff was sobbing as Harry quickly stood up and checked nothing was broken.

   “This is horrid!” cried the dragon. “I just wanted the pretty nuggets, he just said I had to take you, didn’t say a thing about jumping or running or – or climbing.” He hiccupped and rubbed his blue eyes, and Harry couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

   “It’s okay,” he said, patting his scaly head. “We’ll keep you safe.”

   “Running,” said Draco, pointing back to the other roof where several more Rhansyk had climbed over. “Running would be good now.”

   Harry did as he was told, but in the back of his mind he was chewing at how fruitless this was. They needed to stop reacting and be proactive, they needed to bring Jack to them. They skidded to a halt as the flat roof became tiled and slanting, and the boys wasted no time in starting their ascent, grabbing onto cold terracotta with pink, numb hands. Puff streaked ahead, beating them to the top and to survey their surroundings.

   But he vanished from sight, yanked downwards in a blink of an eye. Harry jerked in surprise. “Puff?” he called out. “Puff!” He and Draco raced up the last few feet, launching themselves at the apex of the roof.

   Jack the Ripper was sitting on the other side, Puff struggling as he squeezed his long, dirty fingers leisurely around the dragon’s neck.

   “Let him go!” yelled Draco, grabbing the apex to balance himself and unsheathing Godric’s sword. Jack was propped up on one elbow, lounging horizontally across the tiles in a most unnatural way. Harry could see he had once been dressed in a Victorian gentleman’s attire, but now clothes and flesh had been sickeningly intertwined and moulded together with big, fat, black stitches. His fingernails were grey and red raw at the cuticles, and the bones of his toes ripping through his black, polished shoes like the talons of a great beast. Ribs poked through rancid flesh melded with grimy, soiled cotton, and a gold pocket watch swung merrily from one of them. His eyes glowed as red as the fires being lit all around the Limbo London, and he grinned with yellow teeth.

   “Certainly,” he said pleasantly, but his voice was a disturbing, growling noise, like rocks being ground together. He opened his grasp on Puff, and with a squeak the little red dragon went tumbling down the roof.

   Harry cried out and reached with his hand, but Puff was already gone from sight. In an instant, he switched his focus back on the Rhansyk, waiting for him to pounce on them, but he merely stroked his chin. Harry didn’t understand how lying like that didn’t mean he rolled down the terracotta tiles too, and the illusion was making him queasy.

   “Where are the Voldemorts?” Harry blurted out instead, aiming his wand at Jack’s head. “You and that woman, you wanted us to follow you, we know we have to fight them.”

   Jack laughed. “Yes,” he said, his accent even more antique than Alex’s. “Follow us, not them. Keep you out of the way.”

   “I _knew_ it!” fumed Draco, also pulling out his wand and slotting it in the groove of the sword just as Ric had done. “Well, if your job is to kill us, try your best Mr Ripper, I am in a very bad mood.”

   “Me?” said Jack.

   Harry suddenly felt hands grabbing around his waist, and he thrashed out as the Rhansyk hoard pulled him and Draco back down, tumbling all the way to the flat roof.

   Harry let out an “Ooof!” noise as he hit the concrete and felt himself hoisted up straight away. Hands were punching and feet were kicking; he felt his lip split and his ribs crack and his fingers bend too far back. He bellowed in pain as voices in a dozen languages hooted and cheered. His wand dropped from his hand.

   _“Draco!”_ he yelled out as he fell to the floor, his vision obscured by too many feet and legs. He curled up and tried to protect himself from the blows, but they were relentless.

   He lashed out with his feet, trying to land a kick, but even if he did connect it didn’t do much good. His body was awash with pain, blood was running in his eyes.

   Huge hands clutched under his arms, and he felt himself hauled up like a child. A giant man, even bigger than any of the Vikings, held him aloft like you might a puppy you were inspecting. Harry’s right shoulder screamed in agony and he cried out and flinched. The huge man laughed, white t-shirt and blue denim jeans straining against bulging muscles.

   “Puny,” he mocked in a strong Eastern European accent. “You will not stop us.”

   _“Will too!”_ screeched a nasally little voice, and a red blur came shooting across the rooftop like a bullet.

   Puff hit the giant man in a flurry of claws and teeth, tearing clothes and skin and unravelling stitches. The man bellowed and dropped Harry painfully to the ground as he clawed at the dragon, trying to get him off. Harry tried to roll away, but someone grabbed his hair and yanked him backwards.

   “HARRY!” he heard Draco yell, but still couldn’t see him amidst the frenzy. He tried twisting his head against his hair, and although Draco remained elusive he did see a Chinese looking Rhansyk attempt to pick up Gryffindor’s sword and drop it like it burnt him, like the Viking boys had described. That was a small relief if they couldn’t use that at least.

   Whoever had his hair yanked savagely, and Harry jerked in pain. He found himself thrown away, but as he hit the ground, so did the huge man. Or what was left of him anyway. Puff dropped on all fours, his haunches up, his scales glistening with blood.

   “Yummy monsters,” he growled, and sprung at another Rhansyk, this one a stocky man in wooden clogs and a brown tunic and trousers.

   Harry looked frantically around for his wand, and spotted it several feet away. His right arm wouldn’t move and his shoulder felt like it was on fire, but he tried to scramble to his feet anyway. A punch to the face sent him rocking backwards and his nose gave a loud crack as it broke.

   He couldn’t take much more of this mob.

   A Rhansyk came running after him, but Harry had found himself near the edge of the rooftop, and with a tremendous amount of effort he coiled his legs up, and kicked out with all his might as the creature pounced. With a scream it went flying into the air and over the side of the building.

   “One,” breathed Harry as another two came running at him. He managed to get on his feet and dart to the side, forcing the Rhansyk to follow, but as he looked back Puff struck one of them like something demented, almost taking their head off.

   Someone slammed into Harry, bringing them both crashing to the ground again, and Harry screamed as the Rhansyk bashed his injured shoulder. There were too many of them, more still were coming for Harry as this one pinned him down.

   But then he spied his wand.

   He threw his hand out, and managed to grab the tip of it with his fingers. _“Serptum-”_ he spluttered, trying to remember Draco spell. _“Spectra- Sectrum-”_

_“SECTUMSEMPRA!”_ screamed Draco, and with that one word the Rhansyk on top of Harry was demolished in a gory cloud of dust and thread.

   Harry looked up to see a very bloody and battered Draco Malfoy, levelling Gryffindor’s sword with his wand in, standing in a crowd of Rhansyk, who were suddenly looking at him a lot more warily than they had been before.

   He winked.

   Harry launched himself upright. _“Sectumsempra!”_ he bellowed at the nearest Rhansyk, who looked distraught as his stitches unraveled and his bits of skin and clothes fell apart. Draco was arching and curving Godric’s blade in a beautiful display of swordsmanship. His face portrayed blind fury as he cut them down one by one. Puff looked like he was having a lot of fun as he sprung from one victim to the next.

   “Oh deary me,” Harry heard from behind him, and he spun around to see Jack calmly walking down the tiled slanting roof in a manner that shouldn’t have been possible at that angle. “Must one do everything for himself?” he asked disdainfully.

   _“Sectumsempra!”_ yelled Harry, but all Jack did was stop and observe as several of his stitches frayed.

   He sighed. “And I was hoping for a challenge,” he bemoaned.

   “You hurt my friend,” Harry growled through gritted teeth as Jack reached the flat roof. The other Rhansyk seemed to be leaving him alone now Jack was talking to him, which made Harry worry how Draco and Puff were doing.

   “So you are going to punish me?” asked Jack, like he was a teacher encouraging a pupil to answer a tricky problem. “You seem a little worse for wear to be administering discipline.”

   Harry couldn’t argue with that. He was holding his wand in his left hand which felt completely wrong. His shoulder throbbed and his face stung from all the cuts and welts. His knees felt like they might give up on him at any moment and his jeans were ripped open to reveal the slashes to his aching skin underneath.

   None the less, Harry glared at Jack the Ripper with seething hatred. “Where are the Voldemorts?” he asked, shifting on his feet and trying to keep his wand straight. “I won’t let you do this.”

   Jack laughed, a broad smile drawing across his face. “Ah,” he said fondly. “I have heard that often a time, I find it endearing. It must be part of human nature to carry on the fight, even when defeat such as yours is inevitable.”

   “Is it?” shouted Draco, and Harry allowed himself just a glance over his shoulder. There were no more Rhansyk left, only bits and dust, and Draco and Puff standing side by side, dripping with blood.

   It was a sickening sight, but Harry’s spirits leapt in his heart. This wasn’t over yet.

   He looked back at Jack, who slowly drew a slender dagger from the inside of his sleeve. “Your little spell doesn’t work on me,” he said as Draco and the dragon approached. “Do you think you can do better with that kitchen knife boy?”

   “Hell yeah,” said Draco, and lunged.

   Jack the Ripper moved at an astonishing rate, jumping like a gazelle out of the blade’s path and slashing down with the dagger. Draco yelled and crumpled as it carved down the length of his back, splashing bright red blood.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ bellowed Harry on instinct, and Jack was knocked off his feet. He still landed back on them like a cat, but the humour had vanished from his face.

   “I despise conjurers,” he snarled. “Come here and fight like a man.”

   “I’d rather fight like Hermione,” retorted Harry. _“Tarantallegra!”_

   Jack’s legs went crazy, kicking and dancing like a puppet on a string. Harry took the brief respite as a chance to shoot over to Draco. _“Episkey,”_ he breathed, healing up the terrible cut on his back.

   Jack roared and with great exertion brought his legs back under control. “This is LIMBO,” he hollered. “You stupid humans have no concept of how to control it like I can!”

   Harry focused with all his might on the magic flowing through his left hand. _“Reducto!”_ he bellowed, and the ground at Jack’s feet exploded in a giant fireball. The Rhansyk howled as he caught fire, and Harry pulled Draco to his feet.

   Puff scampered over to Jack, and took an enormous deep breath, inhaling the flames Harry had just created. “Stop!” he cried, panicked, thinking Puff was undoing the work of the spell, but just when it seemed like the dragon couldn’t possibly inhale any more, he shot it all back out again in a ferocious stream of molten lava.

   Harry gasped, he couldn’t help it as the heat reached all the way over to Draco and him, and Puff vanished from sight in the inferno.

   _“Puff!”_ he yelled, and Draco and him stumbled forward a few feet despite the flames. “Oh no,” he said, dropping his wand hand to his side.

   Jack’s form could be seen through the fire, flailing and pin wheeling frantically, a dark form in the glowing orange and red, but the little dragon was nowhere.

   After a few moments, Jack stopped screaming and moving, and began falling apart. The second he did, Harry fired his wand at the raging blaze. _“Aguamenti!”_ he cried, a jet of water blasting into the flames.

   _“Eewwah!”_ squealed an annoyed voice, and Harry’s broken, tired face split into a massive smile as Puff the treasure hording dragon stumbled out of the deluge, hands over his head. “Spoilt,” he gasped, his feet tripping over one another and his eyes barely open. “Nice fire.”

   He collapsed on the ground.

   “Puff!” cried Harry and Draco together, and ran over to him.

   “Are you okay?” asked Harry, dropping to his knees and cradling his scaly head. Even now his skin was cool.

   “Puff wake up,” called Draco, crouching down in front of him and Harry.

   “Shouldn’t,” rasped Puff, his eyes still closed but his fat body twitching. “Have done…that.”

   “You got him,” assured Harry. “You killed Jack the Ripper, you saved us.”

   Puff twitched again. “Still,” he breathed, agitated. “Still London.” He was trying to open his eyes and his claws were scraping at Harry’s arms.

   “Ow,” he yelped, pulling back. “Yes we’re still in London, it’s okay.”

   “Nooo,” whined Puff, thrashing more. Harry frowned at Draco.

   “Is something wrong?” he asked.

   Draco’s face turned to horror. “Look out!” he screeched, and lunged for Harry’s shoulders to pull him away. But it was too late.

   Harry grunted as red hot pain vaulted through his back, and Draco pushed him aside, bringing the Sword of Gryffindor down with a heavy clang.

   The charred remains of Jack the Ripper were still animated, and even though he’d lost his head, legs and most of his left arm, he was still trying to kill Harry and Draco. But Draco brought the sword down again and again, chopping what was left of the body into smaller and smaller bits, until there was nothing left but scraps.

   Satisfied he was no longer a threat, Draco dropped the sword, and it landed in thick, wet mud.

   Even through his pain, Harry had to force himself to sit and look around. “What the…?”

   London had disappeared, just like that. And in its place, they were now sitting on cool, damp grass. It was still night, and lavender clouds sailed across the sky, blocking out the moon and stars in turn.

   They were on the grounds of a big manor house that stood impressively before them. The landscape rolled away down hillsides, but in the dark Harry couldn’t make out much other than a graveyard to their left.

   “Puff?” he said, suddenly noticing he had vanished. “Puff where are you? Where are _we?”_ Had he taken them to another Rhansyk? Despite what he’d said about leading them in the wrong direction, Harry had thought Jack would lead them to the Voldemorts, that was what Ric had apparently said after all.

   “I know where we are,” said Draco, his voice flat and cold. Harry was in too much pain to have moved anywhere, but Draco had stood to his feet and walked forward several paces.

   Harry looked between him and the house. “And?”

   Draco turned back to face him, distress clear on his pale and bloodied face. “And that’s Malfoy Manor,” he replied in little more than a whisper. “That’s where I grew up.”

 

***

 

   The girl was fast. Very fast. Harry wondered if she’d been a slave in old America from the way she looked and talked, but surely a girl who’d been kept chained her whole life couldn’t move like this one. She was like the wind, like freedom itself.

“How the Mas’er doin’?” she called cheerfully, jumping over a row of crates each marked with a skull and cross bone. If Harry was honest, he was absolutely exhausted.

   “Fine,” he gasped, determined to keep up with her. “Are we nearly there?” The black girl pointed ahead between all the colourful tents to something red looming in front of them. It stood twice as high as most of the tents surrounding it, even the ones that had been converted into warehouses and fire stations.

   Harry’s legs found new life. “The big top,” he breathed. That was where he would find Sirius, he was nearly there, and once he found him they could both go home. Together.

   “Yessir,” chirped the girl. She hadn’t asked him why he wanted to go there, or anything about him at all in fact. Being in the company of Godric Gryffindor seemed to be enough for her to help with a spring in her step.

   Harry had to admit that was never how he had envisaged the founder of his house, but nothing about Limbo made sense to him, so he wasn’t all that surprised. They ran between the swathes of people rushing towards them, swords and spears and bows waving in all directions, battle cries flying through the air.

   “Who are you fighting?” Harry found himself asking between breaths. He told himself he didn’t care, that it wasn’t his business, but the truth was it was his business if it stopped him getting to Sirius.

   “The Mas’er say they bad men,” said the girl. “That they here to make a big ruckus in awl the worlds, make our home disappear.”

   “You mean Limbo?” Harry asked as they pelted by a barbecue manned by a jolly fellow with a huge round belly and an apron saying ‘Hug The Chef’. A crowd of about a dozen were eyeing up his burgers hungrily and didn’t notice Harry and the slave girl whizzing past.

   “Yup,” she replied. “But the Mas’er gonna make ‘em leave, make it quiet like before it got noisy an’ bright.”

   “Before we gave it form,” said Harry to himself, thinking back to the other doppelgangers in the library. He really hoped he and them weren’t what she meant by the ‘bad men’, but he decided he’d asked enough questions already.

   The big red top was getting closer, and his heart leapt. He ducked as a cannon ball went flying overhead, but it didn’t stop his feet from flying over the muddy grass, the tent never leaving his sight. As he ran, his wand free hand fumbled behind him and felt the rope again for reassurance. He was going to get Sirius back, it would be okay, he wouldn’t fail him again.

   They dashed into the entrance to find a sort of command centre, all grey metal and filled with cigarette smoke that made Harry cough. People were running from table to table with bits of paper and cardboard files clutched in their hands. Women with red nails and big curly hair under pointed military hats were tapping on Morse Code devices and men with swords in even pointier hats were arguing with each other and moving little plastic figures over vast maps.

   Harry came to a halt and the girl only just noticed in time. “This place is huge,” he said, overwhelmed as she ran back to him. “How am I going to find him?”

   “Wos he look like, your friend?” the girl asked. “Ima help the Mas’er look.”

   “Um,” said Harry, moving through the tables. Some people glowered at him, others just ignored him. “Tall, black hair, late twenties, likes to turn into a dog.”

   “Huh?”

     “Dominus Potter!” Harry spun at the mention of his name. A man who looked like a Roman centurion in brown leather kilt and metal helmet with a red plume ran over to him and bowed. “Where is Dominus Malfoy, we left you at the mountain top.” His eyes widened. “Did you succeed in your task?”

   “Oh,” said Harry quickly, waving his hands. “No, sorry, different Harry, I’m the one who was here before, and I’m looking for my godfather, Sirius Black – do you know him?”

   The Roman raised his eyebrows. “How did you find your way back to Limbo?” he asked, confused.

   “Long story,” said Harry. “I really need to find Sirius.”

   The soldier nodded and bowed. “Of course. Dominus Black was keen to join the ranks, and I believe headed towards the castle with the archers.”

   “Castle?” Harry repeated.

   “Isa know,” cried the girl eagerly waving her hand. The Roman nodded at her.

   “Are you alright to have Tiny take you,” he asked Harry. “My men are waiting for me.”

   Harry tried to tell him yes, but the Roman was already gone, melted into the crowd of generals, knights and samurais . He turned to the slave girl, who looked keen on the balls of her dusty feet, her hands gripping onto the muslin cloth of her ragged dress. “Tiny?” he said.

   “Yessir,” she replied. “Tiny show Mas’er Potter the big ol’ castle, you ready?”

   Harry inhaled. It’s okay, he told himself. It would have been impossibly lucky if Sirius had been in the first place they’d looked, and he knew the direction he’d headed. He just hoped Hermione and the others were okay back at the Ministry, with those Unspeakables baring down on the doors when he’d left.

   He had a sudden terrible thought, and it must have shown on his face, because Tiny took a step forward in concern. “Mas’er?”

   What if the Unspeakables took them away? What if, when he tugged on the rope, there was no one holding it on the other end anymore? Would he and Sirius both be stranded in Limbo?

   He shook his head. “I’m fine,” he told Tiny. The Unspeakables were good guys, he reminded himself. They were trying to stop him doing something stupid and illegal, but now he’d done it, it made no sense they wouldn’t let him return. He hoped.

   “Let’s do it,” he said resolutely.

   Tiny took off again like a rocket, back towards the exit of the big red top, and Harry darted behind her, weaving his way between the war lords.

   Outside was even more chaotic than when they’d entered, and for a moment Harry couldn’t tell what they were running from. Tiny had stopped dead amidst the panic, her head snapping back and forth in an attempt to discern where the danger was coming from, but it didn’t take long.

   A huge black shadow swooped across the campsite, and Harry looked up just in time to realise his friend the back dragon was back, roaring as it tore through the sky, dousing the ground below with fire as people screamed and ran for cover. “Look out!” yelled Harry as it came towards them, and he grabbed Tiny to him. _“Protego!”_

   The shield charm erupted from his wand, protecting them from the flames that lit up the grass by their feet. The heat was all consuming, and Harry gasped in shock at the suffocating hot air as Tiny clutched to him, shaking against his body.

   Water flew through the air, from a wand or a hosepipe Harry couldn’t tell, but immediately the fires died down and the air cooled. Harry and Tiny released each other and looked around as people emerged from inside tents and under dustbin lids.

   “You saved me,” said Tiny quietly, stepping hastily away from Harry.

   “Of course I did,” said Harry perplexed. The black girl looked at him with a sad frown, then realisation dawned on her face.

   “Oh,” she said, happier. “I knows the way to the castle.”

   Harry found his mouth drop open a little bit. “That’s not why I protected you,” he said as several dwarves in full armour went charging by singing a song about dragon soup and croutons. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, because, well I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt, especially not someone who’s being so kind in helping me.”

   Tiny stared at him, her eyes looking particularly wide and round against her black skin. “You is very kind Mas’er,” she said, turning her gaze to the ground. “Isa take you to the castle now.” Without another word she sprinted off again, and Harry had to race to catch her.

   The battle was getting worse. Every minute or so something nasty would jump out from somewhere and attack, howling and slashing the people in their way with talons or knives or razor-bladed tales.   Harry and Tiny ducked and dived between them as they headed through the tents towards a wooded looking area, and every now and again Harry would pause to help someone with a hex or just to shout “Watch out!”

   He felt bad not stopping all together to assist, but he kept telling himself this wasn’t his fight, he was doing enough with the little help he was giving, and the only reason he was here was to save Sirius. But the more he ran with his new companion, the more worried he became for her safety. It seemed people here were just as afraid of dying as in the real world, and if anything were to happen to her because she was guiding him he would never forgive himself.

   As they reached the dark forest a grim looking pirate leapt down from the trees with a battered looking cutlass, swinging at Tiny’s head. She screamed and rolled to the floor, giving Harry a clear shot to blast him back into a tree several feet away. He crumpled to the ground and did not get back up again.

   Tiny huffed and jammed her hands on her hips as she stood up. “They be too many bad men here,” she said crossly, then wagged her finger at the unconscious pirate. “You behave like a gen’leman, you don’t get whooped.”

   Harry rubbed the back of his neck and caught Tiny’s eye. She shrunk away, but he took her elbow firmly.   “I’ll make you a deal,” he said.   “You see anything bad, you duck, and I’ll whoop. Okay?”

   Tiny smiled shyly at him. “Okay Mas’er Potter.”

   They began running again, dodging evergreens and anything that looked like it was moving of its own accord. They scrambled up and down hills, jumping logs and sweeping branches aside. Harry only had to contend with a couple more bandits assaulting them, but Tiny didn’t let it phase her. That was, until something hairy with too many legs leapt out and grabbed her.

   She screamed, and Harry shot at it with an _“Relashio!”_ but that only made it let go. It was like a spider, the really big ones that Harry and Ron had met in the Forbidden Forest, and once its eight legs were all back on the ground it charged for Harry.

   _“Petrificus Totalus!”_ he tried, but the spider ducked the spell and slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. It’s multiple eyes were alive with glee as it tried to bite him with fangs dripping with green goo, and Harry struggled to keep its head back away from his neck.

   “Bad bug!” screeched Tiny, and slammed the spider over its head with part of a tree trunk, knocking it off.

   Harry gasped from breath, and before the spider had time to right itself again, he hit it with another spell. _“Reducio!”_

   In a flash, the spider shrunk from the size of a pony, to the size of, well, a spider. With an animal like yell, Tiny brought her bare foot down on the miniaturized monster, squashing it into nothing more than a green smear.

   “Thanks,” said Harry, panting as she helped him to his feet again.

   “Isa mah pleasure Mas’er Potter,” said Tiny with a grin, and carried on running.

   It wasn’t long before they reached the edge of the trees, and came to an abrupt halt. Before them stood a classic castle, with a moat and a drawbridge leading to an inner keep with towers and crenulations. Unfortunately, between Harry and it were at least two hundred humans, trolls, centaurs, goblins, and things he couldn’t even identify trying to get in. Catapults and archers were firing on both sides, men were trying to scale the walls with ropes and ladders, trolls were throwing brave looking individuals up and over the barricades.

   Tiny looked at Harry. “How you find your friend?” she asked. “Can’t take no message in there, I’m sorry.”

   Harry looked at her. “Message,” he said happily, then turned and fired his wand. _“Expecto Patronum!”_ he cried, and Tiny jumped as a big silvery stag appeared before them. “Go find Sirius,” Harry told it. “Let him know him I’m here, to come to me.”

   The Patronus nodded once, then gallivanted off into the melee. “Thank you for all you’ve done Tiny,” said Harry, turning to the slave girl. “You’ve helped me so much, but I should be fine now. I don’t want you in any more danger.”

   “You want I should go?” she said. She seemed a bit hurt.

   He took her gently by the shoulders. “I want you to be safe,” he said with a smile. “I should be leaving any minute now, I’ll be fine, but I want you to get back to the tents.”

   “But,” she said, shaking her head and stepping away from his hands. “You didn’t find your friend, you in the middle of a big ol’ hoo ha, you still in trouble.”

   Harry was really touched by her dedication, and looked out through the trees to the battle. It was so close, but he felt oddly detached from it when he should have been terrified.

   “I sent a message to him, with the silver stag,” Harry explained. “He’s a wizard.” He held up her want to her. “So he’ll be able to come here just by thinking about it, with magic.”

   Tiny raised an eyebrow. “That make no sense,” she said stubbornly.

   Harry laughed. “I suppose it doesn’t,” he said. “But it’s true, so he’ll be able to come here, and then I can use more magic to get us to our home, outside of Limbo.”

   “Outside?” she repeated, her eyes wide again. Harry suddenly felt uncomfortable.

   “Oh,” he said, flustered. “Do you want to come too? I don’t know if that would be possible-”

   “Back to the real world?” Tiny interrupted scornfully. “Mas’er Potter, you been so sweet, but Isa worried you a bit stupid.” And with that, she pecked his cheek with a little kiss, then took off like lightning.

   Harry touched his cheek and smiled sadly as she vanished into the undergrowth. Could he have taken her with him, would she have liked the real world now? He guessed he’d never know.

   There was a small fluttering noise, and Harry turned just in time to see his godfather apparate in front of him. “Sirius!” he cried, and threw his arms around him. He’d done it. He’d really done it.

   “Harry?” Sirius said, confused and pulled away. “But you were with Draco?”

   Harry shook his head. “No, it’s me, I came back for you, through the veil.” He watched as realisation dawned on Sirius’ face. “I’m going to take us home.”

   Sirius let out a whoop that died in his mouth as he and Harry dropped to the floor as several twisted looking creatures bounded over in their direction, followed by a group of US marines and Red Indians in hot pursuit. The battle was coming closer.

   “We have to get out of here,” said Harry over the gunfire.

   “You’ll get no argument from me,” cried Sirius. “How do we-?”

   “Just hold on,” said Harry pulling them on their feet again. Sirius grabbed Harry’s hand as a shot rang through the air, so loud it felt like it made Harry’s heart stop. He pulled the rope for the first tug as he looked at Sirius’ face, and he couldn’t understand why it was splattered with blood. Tug two he frowned as Sirius shouted his name, but the gunshot had left a ringing in his ears and he couldn’t hear him. It was on tug three he looked down.

   They were pulled off their feet just like they’d activated a portkey; colours rushed past Harry’s face but all he could register was Sirius’ vice like grip on his wrist. They flew, and Harry sank into the momentum, letting it take him wherever it chose. He’d gotten what he wanted, he didn’t care anymore.

   They landed on the stone floor of the auditorium with an unceremonious thud, and Harry rolled off his godfather, his breath ragged, his fingers gripping onto Sirius’ shirt for fear of losing him again. People were arguing all around him, shouting and grappling, but at his and Sirius’ appearance they all stopped, stunned.

   “Harry!” cried several people at once, but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the old and cracked ceiling, the edge of the veil occasionally fluttering into view. Why couldn’t he move, why did his chest feel cold?

   People clustered around him; Ron, his dad, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Kingsley Shacklebolt. There were Ministry people too, angry looking ones. But his friends looked scared.

   Harry felt Sirius heave him into his arms. “Harry!” he cried, his face swimming into view. “Harry it’s okay, we’ll get help.” Once again, Harry told himself to look down, and this time he looked properly.

   Blood was seeping at a terrific rate through his shirt, it was pooling all over the ground and Sirius’ hands were covered in it.

   Harry realised it was his blood. He’d been shot.

   He frowned, and looked up at Hermione pushing people out the way to put pressure on the wound, but Harry couldn’t even feel it. “Get help!” she was screaming as several people ran from Harry’s view. “It’s cursed!”

   “No,” moaned Sirius. “No there must be something we can do.”

   “Hold on Harry,” said Neville. “We’ll get help.”

   “You’ll be fine mate,” said Ron thickly.

   Luna knelt down gently by his side, and took his hand. “Harry,” she said softly, a little smile on her face. “Harry I think you’re dying. Don’t be scared.”

   This bought a fresh sob from Ron, and a roar from Sirius, but Harry found himself smiling. He wasn’t sure that was a normal reaction, but he realised he was using the last of his strength to do it. He muttered something as he groped for a hold on Sirius’ clothes again. “Harry I’m so sorry,” choked his godfather, but Harry just muttered again. “What?” he gasped, tears running down his face. “Harry what did you say?”

   “It’s okay,” said Harry, pushing with all he could to get the words out. “It’s okay. I...I found you.” He gave up on talking, and let his eyes flutter closed as his efforts went back to smiling. It really was okay – he had sworn to himself he would rescue Sirius from that place, that place where his mistakes had put him, and he had done it.

   “It’s okay,” he whispered again.

   And then, for the final time, Harry Potter’s world went black.

 


	12. Lights (Part One)

Chapter Seven – Part One

   Lights

 

I had a way then, losing it all on my own

I had a heart then, but the queen has been overthrown

And I'm not sleeping now, the dark is too hard to beat

And I'm not keeping now, the strength I need to push me

 

You show the lights that stop me turn to stone

You shine it when I'm alone

And so I tell myself that I'll be strong

And dreaming when they're gone

 

'Cause they're calling, calling, calling me home

Calling, calling, calling home

You show the lights that stop me turn to stone

You shine it when I'm alone

 

Home

 

Ellie Goulding

 

   Hermione tried to keep her breathing steady, but panic was welling up in her throat, and she was shaking so badly from shock, cold and illness she was struggling to keep herself inside the top of the metal slide.

   Terry was a zombie. They’d got him whilst he’d been protecting her. This was her fault.

   She bit her lip and tried to swallow her tears. Was he scared, did he know what was happening to him? She’d had his wand, he wouldn’t have been able to protect himself. A wave of fury washed over Hermione as she cursed herself again for losing her wand in the rubble of the Potter’s kitchen. Everything would be been so much easier if only she hadn’t been so stupid.

   She shook her head and tried to calm down. What was done was done, she couldn’t help Terry or any of the other townspeople by wallowing in ‘what ifs’. The fact was she did have his wand, and it may not work exactly how she wanted for her, but it was better than nothing. Sarah was still out there too, and hopefully she would find the Horcrux then the two of them could work together to break the curse. And most importantly, Terry’s sacrifice had been worth it, because Hermione had found the person casting the zombie spell on the town.

   She just needed to get through the zombie hoard and half a dozen Death Eaters to get to him. Or her, she couldn’t really tell from the glimpse she’d got from before.

   She figured if she just waited them out, the Death Eaters would leave and then she could just sneak by the zombies. The only problem was her limbs were going numb and her vision was swimming in and out of focus. She rested her hot cheek on the cold metal of the slide, and shuddered. Rainwater was pounding down outside and a miniature stream was running along the slide, pouring onto the ground below and seeping into Hermione’s clothes as it went. She barely noticed though, her clothes were so sodden already.

   In a minute, she told herself. She would get going in a minute.

   The climbing frame vibrated, and Hermione jerked awake, not really aware she’d been nodding off. A movement below caught her eye, and she angled her body so she could see the base of the slide.

   A pair of white eyes were looking up at her.

   She let out a involuntary strangled cry but managed not to lose her grip. “Shoo,” she whispered breathlessly at the young girl zombie as she gawped up at Hermione. “Go away, please.”

   The zombie girl moaned, loudly. She pawed at the metal tube, banging her shins against the lip of the slide. “No,” said Hermione desperately. “No, no, just go away, they’ll hear you.”

   “And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

   Hermione really did lose her grip at the sound of another voice behind her, but a large and calloused hand snatched the scruff of her neck, grabbing clothes and hair to haul her back up onto the main level of the climbing frame.

   She cried out in pain as the hand forced all her body weight onto her hair and her top, but in a moment she was standing on her feet, face to face with the larger Death Eater she’d seen before, with the mop of brown hair.

   “Found a live one!” he bellowed back to the others, who to Hermione’s dismay were all still clustered around where she had seen the spell caster, zombies milling around them.

   “How marvellous,” said Barty Crouch Jr, smiling as if the man had announced he’d brought sweets for the whole group. “Bring her down to me, we can have a little chat.”

   Hermione squirmed but the brown-haired man wrapped his fingers around her arm like a vice and steered her down the steps of the climbing frame.

   If she thought she’d been panicked before, it was nothing to how she was feeling now. This was it, the game was up. They would either zombify her, take her prisoner, or…if she was really honest…just kill her. She’d not only failed herself, but she’d failed Terry, Sarah, the other Harry and his own town and family. It would be an annihilation of a whole community.

   “Hello little girl,” said Crouch as the big man came to a halt and Hermione wrenched free of his grip. “Was that you making all that racket? Are you hiding from the monsters?”

   The other Death Eaters had their wands trained on her, otherwise she would have attempted to use Terry’s to blast that smug look off his face. “I was trying to save all these innocent people,” she spat out instead, her indignation outweighing her fear. “Your curse is killing them, you know that right?”

   Crouch laughed, amused with her, but the other Death Eaters bristled. “You’re a witch,” said Crouch, delighted. “Not pureblood though, otherwise I would know you.”

   “Muggle-born,” answered Hermione, sticking her chin in the air. The argument was blowing her head clear and giving her more energy.

   Crouch smiled politely. “Nothing to worry about from you then.”

   Hermione clenched her jaw, but the truth was whilst she was stuck with Terry’s wand they really didn’t have much to fear, it would barely do anything for her. They must have seen this on her face, because they didn’t attempt to take his wand from her, and it remained in her jeans pocket.

   “Why are you doing this?” she demanded instead, spitting out the rain. “What’s the point of turning all these people into zombies?”

   The Death Eaters laughed. “My dear,” said Crouch sympathetically. “They are not zom-”

   “I _know!”_ screeched Hermione, yanking free of her captor’s grasp for a brief moment before he could seize her back. “It’s Imperius Orbis, I’m not an _idiot.”_

   Crouch regarded her coolly. “My apologies,” he said quietly. “Martin, I think you should escort our guest elsewhere now, she is clearly getting in the way.”

   “No!” she squeaked, and tried to twist around as the man, Martin, began hauling her across the playground. They would turn her, they would kill her. She spoke without thinking. “Is it to do with the Dimensional Leap!”

   “Wait!”

   Martin and the other Death Eaters stopped dragging her towards the woods, and turned back round to face Barty Crouch.

   “What did you say?” he hissed, swiping his hair from his face. His blue eyes were focused and his jaw was set in quite a terrifying manner as he stormed over to them.

   Hermione was cursing herself. How could she possibly explain their theory that the town and her leap were linked without exposing herself. Voldemort had wanted to kill Draco in her world, and when Harry had been in this world that Voldemort had tried to use him to get the Philosopher’s Stone.

   “It is, isn’t it?” she said, side stepping the issue. “It’s something to do with what happened to Harry and You-Know-Who.”

   Crouch slapped Martin’s hands away from her and bent down to look right in her eyes. “Not even the Ministry knows about the body swapping,” he said so quietly she could barely hear him over the rain. “How does a little Mudblood girl know what happened?”

   “I’m friends with Harry,” she bluffed. “And Draco and Parvati, they were there.”

   Crouch looked satisfied. “No they weren’t, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

   Martin went to grab her again, but Hermione saw her mistake. “Harry might not have been there,” she said, “but his body was, with a Harry from another reality inside that defeated your You-Know-Who.”

   Crouch took a step back and studied her carefully, the other Death Eaters watching on warily, the zombie hoard bumping into their shield charms in an attempt to get to their warmth.

   “They told me all about it,” said Hermione, trying to keep them on the wrong foot. “And when Harry couldn’t talk to his parents at home we came here to see why. What does it have to do with the town, why are you hurting these people?”

   Crouch seemed torn, and rubbed his chin with a long finger, then pulled at his collar. “It’s none of your business,” he decided, but he didn’t turn away.

   “But-” she spluttered.

   And then she stopped. Where Crouch had moved the collar of his robe, she could see something underneath. It was on a bit of leather cord, sitting on his collar bones, close around his throat. A necklet, but it was the pendant that had caught her eye. It looked like a tooth.

   “You obviously know too much already,” said Crouch dismissively. “Martin will take you somewhere where you won’t be any trouble.”

   “You’re right,” said Hermione, fighting again as Martin seized her shoulders. “I do know a lot, I can help, are you trying to leap dimensions? Are you trying to find your You-Know-You?”

   “Yeah,” replied Martin, stopping in shock. “How’d you know that?”

   Crouch looked like he was going to shout at him, but Hermione decided to go for broke. “Because I’m from another reality,” she snapped. “And when I came here, it meant your You-Know-Who could move realities. But he’s not in another world, he’s in Limbo.”

   She was met with stunned silence. Until a different voice spoke, from across the playground. “It’s her!” a shrill voice cried, and Hermione looked around to see the spell caster had abandoned his post as well as invisibility charm, and was scrambling over the playground to the group of Death Eaters.

   Not for the first time that night, Hermione was shocked to realise that she knew this man very well.

   “Professor Quirrell?” she said, flabbergasted. Again, she did not expect her old Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher to still be alive in this world, let alone here in Godric’s Hollow.

   “Quirinus,” barked Crouch. “You can’t stop the spell!”

   But Quirrell ignored him, coming to a halt in front of Hermione and looking at her in awe. “It was you,” he said. “You were the one who he rode with, you-” his eyes suddenly looked tearful. “You took him from me.”

   “The spell,” snapped Crouch again, but Quirrell waved him off.

   “There’s more than enough of them now to keep it going,” he said, his eyes not leaving Hermione. “They just need to keep working on it now, it’ll take time.”

   “What will take time?” Hermione asked, but Quirrell struck her across the cheek with the palm of his hand.

   She gasped as the sting of the slap zinged through her face. “It’s your fault he was taken there,” said Quirrell, lip trembling. “And now we have to try and find him.”

Hermione took a steady breath. “You knew he was in Limbo?” she couldn’t help but ask, even if it earned her another slap.

   Quirrell raised his hands to his head, his fingers stroking the material of his dripping turban. “I found him,” he breathed. “When Potter’s spell broke him, I found him, kept him safe.”

   Hermione felt sick. “He was on the back of your head,” she said, repulsed. “Wasn’t he?” Quirrell grabbed his turban is surprise, but Hermione shook her head. “That’s what happened in my world too, to my Quirrell.”

   “But he felt you move worlds,” her old teacher bemoaned, glancing over what she said about her alternate reality. “I felt you, he saw the new world, the world of endless possibilities and he went. He went…” he choked. “Without _me!”_

   Hermione’s eyes flicked to the tooth around Crouch’s neck again, and tried to remember Draco’s exact words back at the Ministry. “You want to bring him back?” she said out loud. “Rescue him?”

   Crouch, who had been quiet for a while, scoffed. “Bring him back?” he said. “You silly girl, why would we bring him back here when he is a king in the new realm?”

   She took a moment to process what he was saying. “You want to follow him?” she said slowly.

   “We will be his right hand men!” cried Quirrell. “We will find the way and we will follow him to new glories!”

   “So you’re trying to open a portal?” she questioned.

   “Into Limbo,” clarified Crouch, taking a step closer to her, his jaw set again. “Not another reality, Limbo.”

   “No one’s ever done it before,” chipped in Martin whilst the other Death Eaters nodded earnestly.

   Hermione’s head was throbbing, but she could see the pieces falling together. “The Orbis spell,” she said, eyes moving from Crouch to Quirrell. “You’re not doing it to zombify the people, that’s just the side effect.”

   “All those joint minds,” said Quirrell gleefully. “So busy and hard at work, trying to find our solution, trying to find how to step between universes and straddle the void.”

   “But,” she spluttered. “If you needed minds, why a little town, why not a university, the Ministry?”

   “And miss out on a chance to punish Potter?” answered Crouch wickedly. “No, Godric’s Hollow is still a large magical town, but more importantly it was where his family lived, it was the perfect choice to run our experiment.”

   “Well,” said Hermione, trying to push this new information aside. “You shouldn’t have bothered.”

   “Oh?” asked Crouch folding his arms. “And why’s that?”

   She swallowed. “Because I know the spell,” she told them. “I can help you.”

   “What!” cried Quirrell, but Crouch cut across him.

   “You’re lying,” he said. “How could a Mudblood know a spell like that.”

   _“I,”_ snarled Hermione truthfully. “Am one of the most gifted witches of my generation and have experience of dimension leaping. _I_ want to get home, and could help you achieve your goal at the same time.” She shrugged in what she hoped was a nonchalant way. “But if you don’t want my help-”

   “No,” cried Quirrell. “No, we want it, don’t we Barty?”

   Crouch glared at her.

   “Gifted?” he sneered, then clicked his fingers at her. “Pretty slow off the draw though, Miss Mudblood. Wand, now.”

   Hermione hesitated for only a second before fishing Terry’s wand from her jeans and handing it over. She couldn’t do much with it anyway, and it would not do to make Crouch any madder than he already was.

   He inspected it briefly before making it disappear in his robes. “So you’re clever, is that right?”

   The rain was running down his face, but he didn’t so much as blink it away as he regarded her. Hermione however felt like she was drowning. “Uh,” she stammered. “Yeah, I mean yes. I helped do the spell that got me here.”

   “And you came here on purpose?” questioned Crouch.

   Hermione’s eyes flicked around the Death Eaters guarding her, and she tried to stay calm. “No,” she admitted. “There was an anomaly, it would have worked perfectly otherwise.”

   Crouch raised an eyebrow.

“Come on Barty!” pleaded Quirrell. “It’s a start, something to go on. I studied the hotspots but it’s not like having someone who’s actually done it, and crossed over.” He was so ingratiating, bobbing about and wringing his hands.

   “What do you need?” Crouch asked her eventually.

   Hermione licked her lips despite the falling rain on them. “Oh,” she said, trying to sound disappointed. “But we need something personal of his, of You-Kow-Who’s.”

   The Death Eaters looked between them, but Barty Crouch Jr considered her coldly for a moment, then fished under his collar for the tooth. “This belonged to his pet Basilisk,” he said, breaking the leather and holding it out for her. “Will that do?”

   No, thought Hermione to herself. But the venom on it will kill his Horcrux.

 

***

 

   “Kill the what now?” gasped A.J. as the brief humour Ron had experienced died on his lips.

   “What’s so funny?” demanded Crabapple, taking another step towards them.

   Ron shook his head, A.J.’s weight dragging them both down. “Nothing,” he spat out into the rain. “Absolutely nothing.”

   Crabapple scowled, dismissing the matter. “Give me the stone,” she said, “and I will let you live.”

   Ron sighed. “Sure,” he said, using his free hand to fish into his pocket. It wasn’t what she thought she was after anyway. “Why not.”

   _“No!”_ screeched Abigail, scrambling up from the ground, blood and rain matted into her hair from where Crabapple had thrown her. She launched at the Headmistress, jumping on her back and wrapping her arms around her neck.

   “Abbey!” bellowed Ron in shock, trying to jump to her aid with A.J. still attached to him, but Crabapple had already swung around and dislodged her, so she catapulted off her and straight into Ron, knocking them all to the floor.

   They were a pile of limbs. “Don’t do it!” spluttered Abbey, clawing at Ron. “Don’t give her what she-”

   But Crabapple hit them with an _“Expelliarmus!”_ spell, knocking them apart. “You will BOW before the Dark Lord, you will QUAKE!” she thundered, towering over the three teenagers. “Mercy will be his to decide, but this is your last chance: _Give. Me. The-”_

   _“Deprimo!”_ came a voice from behind them, blasting the Headmistress off her feet in a force of wind and rain, like the elements had turned against her, and dumped her in a painful skid towards the end of the alleyway.

   Ron spun around in shock, and saw Professor Rodriguez storming up the path.

   He flinched back, but the teacher swooped down to them. “Good God, are you children alright?” he cried in his Spanish accent, grabbing their faces to inspect for damage.

   “Crabapple,” gasped Abbey, fighting back a sob. “She, she-”

   “You _betrayed_ us all!” Rodriguez snarled, jumping to his feet, striding over them, his wand raised at the woman the other end of the ally. “You let that woman, that _malvado,_ take my body, use my hands, my feet, for her own wickedness!”

   “Heraldo!” commanded Crabapple, on her feet again. “This is none of your concern, what Bellatrix did was wrong, but-”

   He cut her off before she could finish with another curse flying through the air, but this time she was ready and threw up a shield to protect herself.

   “Go!” cried Rodriguez back at Ron and the others. “Get out of here, I will hold her back!”

   “No!” replied Abbey, but Ron was already staggering up, A.J. half conscious on his arm.

   “Come on,” he insisted. “We have to go, I’ll explain on the way!”

   Abbey made to dash back towards Rodriguez. “He needs help!”

   It was A.J.’s hand that grabbed her arm, fingers slipping in the downpour. “Listen,” he breathed, his eyes barely open. The wounds Bellatrix had inflicted were still affecting him, and he was getting worse. He needed medical attention, soon. “Listen to Ron. Hat, said about a hat.”

   A fireball flew over their heads, causing them to duck. “What?” cried Abbey as they crouched, but Ron began dragging them away.

   “She’ll kill us!” he shouted. “I promise, come on!”

   Abbey craned her neck to see Rodriguez duelling furiously with the Headmistress, but as far as Ron could tell they were pretty evenly matched.

   “We have to help my friend!” he told her, stumbling towards the alley’s exit. “He’s in terrible danger, but we can help!”

   They gradually made their way back the way they’d come, supporting A.J. between them with Abbey throwing glances over her shoulder as the two teachers duelled in a haze of colourful sparks and rain.  

   “What friend?” cried Abbey, her voice breaking as she tore her eyes away from her teachers. “It’s my friends that need helpin’!”

   They broke out of the alley. There were more battles going on in the main concourse, Death Eaters against teachers and older students, magic firing everywhere with pupils screaming and running for cover.

   “This is a nightmare,” muttered A.J., his head lolling. Ron couldn’t agree more.

   “Abbey!” wailed a voice, and Ron turned to see the little Chinese cheerleader that had taken Abbey’s bag before and a burly boy even taller than he was, also dressed in purple. They were around the next corner of the building, beckoning desperately at Abbey, Ron and A.J. to come join them.   A jet of yellow light zapped overhead, forcing Ron to jerk away and A.J. cried out in pain.

   “Izzy!” called Abbey. “Get down!”

   The boy wrapped his arms around Izzy, but they wouldn’t budge. “Get your _damn_ ass here!” cried the Chinese girl, tears running down her face. “We gotta move, _now!”_

   Abbey ground her teeth. “Idjit,” she growled, eyes darting left and right. From what Ron could tell no one was watching them.

   “Go,” he hissed, and they ran.

   Explosions erupted around their feet and above their heads, and Ron heard himself screaming as nausea threatened to overcome him and his trainers pounded down on the ground, churning up the mud.

   “Come on!” howled Izzy and he felt a shield spell envelope them.

   They tore around the corner of the building into the arms of the cheerleaders. “This way!” barked the boy, sweeping the group along with his long, muscular arm in the rain, and they half ran, half fell along the wall. “Girl where you been!” the boy demanded, his wand out and ready to fend off anyone that came near them. Ron might have been irked by his commanding nature if he hadn’t been so bone tired.

   “We need to find cover,” Abby replied over the storm. The boy and Izzy agreed and seemed to moving somewhere with purpose.

   “Who are the Muggles?” Izzy asked as they reached the end of the wall and stopped. “What’s going on?”

   “Hey,” said Ron, breathing hard and brandishing his wand. “I’m not a Muggle.” Then he patted A.J.’s arm, who grabbed onto his hand. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

   “Except they shouldn’t be here,” snapped the boy. “Izzy’s right, what the Hell is going on?”

   “Shut it Mike,” retorted Abbey, spitting and pushing blond hair from her face. “Ron we shouldn’t have left Rodriguez-”

   “No,” interrupted Ron. “Listen. There’s something else going on, someone was talking to me in the mirror room.”

   “Yeah,” grunted Abbey. “Me, we need-”

   Something exploded. “We need to keep moving!” shouted Mike.

   “Wait, wait!” cried Ron flinging his free arm out, his other still holding on to A.J. “You don’t understand.” He turned to Izzy and Mike. “You want to know what’s going on?”

   Mike looked at Abbey. “He’s a British Muggle?” he said.

   “Yes!” barked Ron, losing his temper. “From another reality, and the whole universe is going to fall apart if we don’t help my friend Harry kill a bit of the evil wizard he has to fight, _okay!”_

   Mike raised his eyebrows. “I got nothing,” he said.

   “Ron what’er y’all talkin’ about,” said Abbey, her eyes wide looking for trouble but so far they were alone. “What wizard?”

   “You-Know-You,” said Ron with conviction, his conversation with Seamus very clear to him now. “You’ve got a You-Know-Who, right?”

   “You mean Voldemort? Of course we do,” wept Izzy. “Who do you think’s attacking us?”

   Ron winced at the use of his name. “Well,” he started, but realised this was too complicated, so ignored Izzy and Mike and just addressed Abbey and A.J. “She’s not after the Philosopher’s Stone,” he said, referring to Crabapple. “She got it all backwards. Seamus told me.”

   “Who’s Seamus?” rasped A.J.

   “My friend,” said Ron, rocking his head back and forth. “Sort of, he’s dead, and he was talking to me from Limbo.”

   “Okay,” said Abbey grimly. “We gotta move, now,” and dove out into the main street of the school complex.

   “No!” cried Ron as the other Fireflies followed her. He and A.J. shared a look.

   “You know you sound nuts right?” asked A.J., and Ron shuddered, his knees weak.

   “Yeah,” he grumbled, and they shot out after them as fast as A.J. could managed. “Abbey!” he spat as they all flattened themselves against a new building, one that looked more like one of the housing structures they’d seen on their way in, back when Chris was still with them.  

   “Enough!” she said back, flicking her hair over her shoulder as the rain plastered it to her face. “We have to get to safety, A.J. is really hurt.”

   “But Ron’s right,” A.J. argued back, pawing at her shoulder, making her stop. They had been climbing over a porch, but now they halted and, reluctantly, Izzy and Mike stopped too.

   “How, which part?” demanded Abbey.

   A.J. managed a shrug. “Beats me.”

   Abbey looked like she was going to bolt again, but Ron cried out. “I can explain!”

   “Do it!” growled Izzy. “People are _dying.”_

   Ron tried to collect his muddled thoughts. “I’m from another reality, right?” he said, again addressing mainly Abbey, who thankfully nodded despite her teammates’ confused stares. “And in between that world and this, and all the other worlds is an in-between sort of place, called Limbo. I dunno what it’s like, but that’s where my best mate is, and he has to fight our You-Know-Who, otherwise everything’s’ gonna go wrong.”

   “How do you know this?” asked A.J. as the bench on a swing jostled in the rain and wind. People were still screaming, and Ron was very aware someone could find them any second now.

   “In the mirror room, you woke me up, but I was talking to Seamus, he told me everything, about how there’s one thing that can help.”

   “Help what!” demanded Abbey. “You made me leave Rodriguez, but you’ve just been talking gibberish since!”

   Ron desperately wished he was better with words, like his sister, but he wasn’t, they always came out in the wrong order. “If we don’t do this for Harry, none of this,” he swept his hand out to illustrate the school and the battle. “Will matter, because nothing will exist anymore. It’ll be wiped out.”

   “What?” asked Mike, his eyes wide and sincere.

   “What do you mean?” asked Izzy.

   Ron screwed up his face, his skin stretching on his throbbing skull. He may remember his conversation with Seamus now, but that didn’t mean he understood it. “I think,” he panted. “It’s like Limbo is the glue that holds all the parallel worlds together, and if it gets unstuck, they’ll fall apart.”

   “Parallel what?” said Izzy, but Abbey hissed her quiet.

“Who could have the power to do that?” she whispered.

   “You-Know-Who,” said Ron, relieved to have finally got their attention. “In Limbo. Seamus said Harry’s going to fight him and unless we do what he said, he won’t be able to win.”

   “And that’s got something to do with the stone we found?” asked A.J.

   Ron swallowed. His fever was making him feel so hot the rain was practically sizzling on his forehead. “No. Crabapple wasn’t talking about the Philosopher’s – Sorcerer’s – Stone when she said I had something that would sway the battle. She got it wrong. I have a, um.” He coughed and tried to remember what Seamus had called it, but couldn’t. “A bit of Voldemort’s soul, it’s complicated, but I brought it with me when I changed dimensions.”

   “You guys sound nuts,” whispered Izzy, but her eyes willed Ron to carry on.

   “And I have to destroy it,” explained Ron. “I wasn’t delirious, I was repeating what Seamus said.”

   “Kill the hat, with magic fire?” said A.J., his forehead creased.

   “The bad thing got stuck in your Ron’s hat,” said Ron eagerly. “That red cap I left in the car, and I need to mess it up, badly, so my Harry has any chance of stopping You-Know-Who.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Again.”

   “Why, what does you cap have to do with-” started Abbey, but shouts carried over the rain, and the group bolted off of the porch.

   “This way!” hissed Mike, darting around the back of the house. They scrambled around as fast as they could.

   “It’s like this,” breathed Ron as they pressed their backs to the wall. “The bit of his soul is stuck in that hat, and if we destroy it, it means Harry can stop Voldemort and save the world, or the universe or something.”

   “With magic fire?” A.J. repeated again, dubiously.

   Ron rubbed rainwater into his tired eyes. “I think so, that’s what Seamus said, or poison or something? Like, proper magic I guess, so it can’t be repaired.”

   Abbey stared at him. “And where’s the hat?” she asked as more shouts and magic rang out through the air, making Ron’s stomach contract.

   “In the car,” he stammered, “The car, where you found us.”

   “Chris’s car?” said A.J. looking even sicker.

   Spells blasted through the night sky above their heads, and the group cowered. “Ron,” said Abbey, grabbing his shirt. “Are you sure, you sure this is what your friend meant, what we have to do?”

   “We have to go!” insisted Mike, bouncing on his toes. “You’re boy here won’t last, he needs help now!”

   “No,” moaned A.J., but even as he said it he swung against Ron’s grip, unable to stand.

   “We’re at Laura’s house,” said Izzy, pulling at A.J.’s clothes. “She’s made a fort.”

   “Typical,” muttered Abbey and tried to pry A.J. away, but he resisted.

   “Help Ron,” he protested, and Ron looked between them desperately.

   “Yeah,” he said. “Weren’t you listening, I need help, I need to get the hat! Save the world! I know that might not sound real to you, but I do this sort of thing all the time!” It sort of hit Ron at that moment that he did. He faced life or death situations far more than any normal teenagers had to. Sure, he normally had Harry and Hermione by his side, but here he was again, and he had to do it without them.

   “Then go get the hat!” shouted Abbey over the rain, wrenching A.J. away and all but throwing him at the Fireflies, who dragged him towards the other houses, barely visible in the moon light. “We’ll look after A.J., find the car!”

   “But,” Ron spluttered. “You’re _leaving?”_

   “There’s no time,” yelled Abbey. “Use a locator spell, find the car, get the hat, Crabapple can’t work out she’d made a mistake!”

   She was already retreating into the rain. “But...” cried Ron helplessly.

“Get!” hollered Abbey, and vanished from sight.

Ron stood in the rain, voices shouting around him, magic flying through the air, rocking the buildings with explosions, and somewhere, far off, a siren was wailing.

   There was no one left to hear him swear. No one left to see him cry.

 

***

 

   It was starting to snow. Cold little flakes were sailing down from the night’s sky and catching in Draco’s hair, resting on the backs of his hands until they melted way with the heat of his skin.

   “Wait, what?” said Harry through gritted teeth. “Your house? What are we doing at your house?”

   Draco stared at the towering manor. It wasn’t quite right, the grounds were all wrong for a start but the building itself looked bigger, and the architecture more pronounced, more vivid. But this was definitely the place he had grown up in.

   He wouldn’t go so far as to call it his home.

   “Dunno,” he said. He hadn’t thought Limbo could get any worse, but arriving at Malfoy Manor was somehow far more terrifying to him than the jungle or old London. It was like he’d stepped into quicksand and knew he only had minutes to live.

   “Alex did say we were bringing Limbo to life, because we’re from the real world,” panted Harry. “Makes sense we’d conjure somewhere we’d know.” Draco frowned and blinked his way out of his reverie. Harry was still on the ground, his whole body was taught and his face was pinched.

   He knew that battling Jack and the other Rhansyk had taken its toll on both of them, but Harry was looking even worse than Draco felt after the cut he’d got to his back. He was healing just fine after Harry’s _Episkey_ spell, but Harry himself was looking like death. “Hey, are you alright?” Draco asked. He knelt down on the grass where Harry was propped up and angled Gryffindor’s sword out of his way.

   “Erm,” said Harry, wincing. “No.” He tried to move forward, and he gasped and cradle his elbow. “It hurts to breath,” he said in little more than a whisper. Draco’s eyes glance over his friend’s body, and really didn’t like the way his right shoulder was looking.

   It must have showed on his face, because Harry grimaced. “It’s dislocated, isn’t it.”

   It was Draco’s turn to nod. “I think so. Okay,” he breathed, running his hands through his hair. “Okay, lie down, Blaise told me how to do this once.”

   “Do what?” asked Harry warily.

   Draco gave him an apologetic look. “Pop it back in.”

   “You could just leave it?” Harry suggested weakly.

   “You won’t be able to do anything,” argued Draco firmly, easing him back down on the grass. “I know what to do, I promise.” He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. Blaise may have been an enthusiast for medi-spells but Draco had never really paid much attention. The only reason he remembered the way to fix a shoulder like this was because her little brother Armand had popped it out a few years back and they didn’t want their mother to know they’d been flying on the Malfoy’s broomsticks. Draco had watched then in fascination as she’d used her hands, not magic, to re-set the joint. He owed it to Harry to at least try and remember what she’d done, but his insides squirmed at the thought of making the injury worse.

   Harry blew out a breath. “Do it,” he said.

   Draco crouched to his knees and raised Harry’s forearm into an L shape. He eased it towards his chest, and Harry let out a shuddery moan and screwed his eyes closed.

   “Okay,” said Draco again, “okay.” He went for it, twisting the forearm back towards him, keeping the right angle as he moved in one swift motion.

   Harry’s shoulder popped back into place.

   “Ahahah!” he cried as his whole body shook and curled up into a foetal position.

   “Are you okay?” asked Draco, unsure if he wanted the answer or not.

   Harry just shook, and barely seemed able to draw breath. But after a minute he managed to nod, then after another minute he slowly sat himself up with Draco’s help. “Yeah,” he breathed out. “Thanks.”

   Draco patted his back. “Any time,” he said, distracted.

   It was so quiet. There was no one else around, and after the carnage they’d been facing for the last few hours that just seemed plain unnerving. How had they got here so suddenly? Where had London gone? Where had Puff gone?

   “So that’s your house?” said Harry quietly, rubbing his arm gently.

   Draco just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. It was his father’s house in all honesty, not his. His home was the Gryffindor tower. But he couldn’t tear his eyes off of the Manor, a sick, twisted feeling worming through his innards.

   “Do you think it’s come from you?” Harry asked. “Your mind I mean.”

   Draco pulled at the damp grass. It was funny, the snow wasn’t really making him cold, as if it were just for decoration rather than real. “This is the last place I’d want to be,” he said, eyes on his fingers. He turned his hand over and looked at his new figure of eight scar on his wrist, flexing his fist, making the tendons stand out under the dark pink lines.

   “The world just changed around us,” said Harry, wiping the sweat from his brow. “One minute it was London, then _whoosh.”_   

   Draco didn’t respond, he just stared darkly at the house as if it was its fault. There weren’t any Rhansyk here from what he could see, no bad guys. Why were they here?

   Harry answered his unspoken question. “I think someone may have brought us here.”

   Draco stopped pulling at the grass. “The Voldemorts?”

   Harry nodded. Despite his aching limbs, Draco got to his feet and pulled Harry up on his good arm. The situation suddenly seemed a lot more tense, and he rested his hand on the sown hilt by his hip. “Maybe they got tired of waiting,” said Harry, “and brought us to them. Or maybe those Rhansyk were holding us back from finding them, and once we destroyed them all we were free to transport ourselves here?”

   “Either way,” said Draco, swallowing the icy lump in his throat. “We’re here, and there’s a good chance the Voldemorts or something just as nasty are here too.”

   “Where are they though?” said Harry, cradling the elbow of his previously dislocated arm as he looked around. “We’re sitting ducks here, why haven’t they come after us?”

   The clouds flew over the moon, casting a shadow over the boys. “Probably because we have to go to them,” said Draco grimly. As repulsed as he was by the house of his childhood, there was something inside urging him to go inside. “Don’t you feel that?”

   “I feel a lot of things,” said Harry, wincing as he let go of his arm and drew out his wand instead. “Let’s go take a look around, see if we can’t work out what’s going on.”

   The boys started moving cautiously towards the looming building. Draco tried to focus on his breathing in an attempt to quash the dread creeping up from his guts. Part of him knew this was just a construct, an imagining of Malfoy Manor, but the illusion was so wholly realistic he could almost hear his father’s voice.

   They reached the driveway and started crunching up the path towards the front door. Draco took in the surroundings again, and frowned. “That shouldn’t be there,” he said, jutting his chin over to their left.

   “What,” said Harry.

   “The graveyard,” replied Draco.

   All of a sudden, Harry came to a halt, his arms falling by his side. He stared at the rows and rows of tombstones, overgrown and sticking out from the ground at odd angles. They started maybe twenty feet from the side of the house, and disappeared from sight in a cloud of mist trailing through it.

   “You don’t think we should go that way?” said Harry, his voice almost trance-like. Draco looked back towards the door.

   “No,” he said honestly. “I… _have_ to go to the house.”

   He looked at Harry, who returned his gaze. “I have to go this way,” he said, looking back towards the misty cemetery. “I know it.”

   “What does that mean?” asked Draco.

   Harry’s face darkened. “Probably trouble.”

   Draco had had enough experience of dark magic to know not to trust when something appeared to be controlling or influencing your actions, but on this occasion he didn’t really see they had a choice.

   “It’s like it’s calling to me,” he said.

   Harry nodded, his attention still on the graveyard. “Do you think it’s them?”

   Draco shrugged. “Fits with my ‘tired of waiting’ theory.”

   “So –what?” asked Harry, finally turning back to face Draco. He wasn’t visibly in pain anymore, but he still looked dishevelled and battle worn. It made Draco weary just looking at him. “They zap us then they’re free to unravel Limbo, destroy all the worlds?”

   The thought chilled Draco’s bones. “You’re the expert on facing him, if you think he’s really capable of something like that-”

   “No doubt,” Harry cut across darkly. “I say we tackle the graveyard first, then attempt to go into the house?”

   But Draco was already shaking his head. “Don’t you see?” he said sadly. “There is no ‘we’ – there’s your Voldemort, and there’s mine.”

   Harry blinked at him. “You want to split up?”

   “I don’t want to,” Draco barked with a laugh that seemed unnaturally loud in the still, snowy scene. “But I think if we’re being called different ways, it’s because we have to go face our destinies alone.”

   “That sounds like prophetic twaddle,” groused Harry, kicking at the stones on the path.

   Draco raised an eyebrow. “Then tell me I’m wrong.”

   Harry didn’t reply. He just deflated a little, then pulled Draco into a hug. “We’ll get through this,” he said sternly. “We’ve made it this far.”

   Draco nodded and let his friend go. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, wishing he really believed it.

   Harry took one last deep breath, then turned and began walking towards the cemetery.

   “Hey Harry!” Draco called after him. The other boy stopped and looked back. Draco felt something pulling painfully on his chest, and he tried to swallow it away. “I,” he said. “I’m glad I met you.”

   Harry managed a little smile, raised his hand, and vanished into the mist, snow and shadow.

   Almost instantly, Draco pushed Harry from his mind. He took a breath and immersed himself in solitude, then began walking towards the front door of the manor. He touched the wood, smooth and hard, before wrapping his fingers around the freezing cold knocker, and pushed the heavy door open.

   The entrance hall was empty. Draco stood by the half open door, and flakes of snow followed him inside, drifting onto the cold marble floor illuminated by long shafts of moonlight. His hand was still resting on the wood, and he moved his finger tips slightly over the grains of wood, absorbing the way the Manor looked.

   The staircase was still there, as well as the ornate umbrella stand and coat rack, however both were empty. There were two doors, one to the left and one to the right, and a hallway stretching out of sight to the left of the stairs. But there were no portraits, no vases or ornaments, none of the homely sights that had made this place at least a little bearable. Now it was just an empty shell.

   Draco let go of the door and stepped over the threshold in trepidation. There was a creek, and in an unnaturally fast movement the front door slammed shut behind him, plunging the room into darkness for a brief moment.

   Draco only just got time to snatch a breath in shock before the torches on the walls sprung to life, flaring orange and filling the entrance hall with the smell of burning wick. He stood very still, his eyes roaming over the corners and shadows dancing in the new light. “Is someone there?” he asked softly.

   There was another creak, and unable to help himself Draco took a step back. He touched the door knob half-heartedly, but he knew he could not return the way he’d come even before his fingers tried to turn it. He was stuck here now, whether he liked it or not.

   So he took a deep, slow breath, and stepped into the centre of the entrance hall, unsheathing his sword and slotting his wand into the groove like Ric did so he could use both at once. He felt instantly soothed holding the blade aloft, and began to calmly assess with way he should go; left, right, up or straight?

   A scratching noise, like a tree branch on a window pane, cut through the silence and ran up Draco’s spine like a bolt of lightning. It tore through his calm as he spun to check both the windows either side of the door, but there was nothing there. The noise came again, and feeling moving was a better idea that staying still, Draco crossed over towards the stairs and began to ascend.

   The torches all went out.

   Draco froze, gripping the banister with one hand and the sword hilt with the other. There were lines visible in the sudden gloom, but nothing solid. “Who’s there?” he challenged the almost total darkness, keeping his voice steady.

   A faint cry came from somewhere up ahead, a voice, and they sounded scared. Draco couldn’t blame them. “Hello?” he said, taking a step forward. He couldn’t hear what they was saying, they was too far away but the voice came again, a single word yelled out from far away.

   He wasn’t alone.

   He stood for a moment, just breathing, the sword heavy in his arms. Who could it be, was it Harry?

   The thought made him move. His eyes were becoming more accustomed to the dark, and he could make out a little more in the moonlight as he moved up another step, and another. The scratches came again, raking on the window panes as if something was trying to get inside. Draco narrowed his eyes at the entrance hall, swallowing, then turned his back on it completely to head up quickly to the first floor landing.

   His heart thumped so hard he imagined he could hear it out loud. Who could they be? Were they in trouble, or was this all part of Voldemort’s plan? Draco wished he could ask Harry’s advice, but he was probably in his own heap of mess right about now. He still wasn’t sure the calling voice wasn’t in fact Harry.

_“Help!”_

   The voice was still faint, but Draco had heard the word clear as day, so quiet though they could have been in any number of places in the house.

   “Hello?” called Draco again, breaking into a jog, Godric’s sword balanced in front of him and his senses alert a he ran down a long corridor. “Is someone there?”

   _“Help me, please!”_

   Draco’s insides ran cold. It was a woman’s voice, or a girl’s, he couldn’t tell, but she sounded desperate and fearful.  

   He stood still, not trusting his senses. He was shaking from adrenalin, his eyes alert in the dark. He edged forward and eased open the nearest door. It lead into a drawing room his grandmother had been fond of in her old age, and in the dark Draco could make out chintzy furniture and a grand display cabinet filled with shrunken heads.

   He backed out, not taking his eyes off the heads, and moved swiftly further down the corridor, pelting round a corner.

   “Can you hear me?” Draco called out, jogging again. There were big windows to his left looking out on the grounds, and closed doors to his right. He spared a second to glance outside to see if he could spot Harry, but he was on the wrong side of the house now to see the strange graveyard.

   Actually, the graveyard wasn’t the only strange thing about the house, or the fact it was completely devoid of any decoration or personal touches. This corridor was far too long, and all these doors couldn’t possibly lead to rooms, the layout wasn’t physically possible, it defied logic.

   “Welcome to Limbo,” Draco muttered to himself, gripping the sword hilt and easing another door open with a creek.

   _“Draco!”_ shrieked the voice, and for a second he almost thought it was coming from inside the room.  He barely had time to consider that the caller knew his name, or how that could be possible, because he realised he was much closer than he’d been before.

   Close enough to finally recognise who the voice belonged to.

   “MUM!” he cried, horror eating him up alive. “Mum where are you!” How could she be there, was she trapped in Limbo, like that other Harry’s Sirius? Which reality was she from?

   Was it his real mum?

   _“Mum, I’m coming!”_ he screamed, legging it down the corridor, throwing open doors as he went.

_“Draco where are you!”_ she cried, he was almost there, he could tell. _“Draco hurry!”_

   He flew around the corner, unfamiliar with the layout of this mimicry of his house. He could go up or down a marble spiral staircase, or left down another corridor, this one with doors on both sides.

   “Mum where are you!” he bellowed, panic coursing through him like a drug. The house seemed to creak over the top of his words, the ominous scratching following him through the brickwork.

   _“In here!”_

   He shot off down the corridor, banging down each door open as he went. These had been the servants’ quarters back when the Malfoys had had a full staff, and the small bedrooms were each furnished sparsely with metal framed beds, wooden cupboards and chamber pots.

   “I’m coming,” he yelled, sweat running down his sore back as he forced open another door. “Hold on, I’m-”

   And there she was. He stopped in the doorway in shock. Tied up to a simple wooden chair, bloody, bruised, and apparently unconscious, was Narcissa Malfoy.

   _“Mum!”_ Draco cried, throwing himself towards her, dropping the sword to check her over with both hands. She was not responsive as he held her face up. “Mum, wake up, who did this to you?”

   The laugh was all he heard before the blinding light filled the room, the scorching pain hitting him on from behind, sending him crashing to the floor and into darkness.

 

***

 

   “Idiot,” said Sarah to herself. “Moron, numpty.” She was trying to keep her breathing steady and her bedraggled hair out of her face, but now she was actually all on her own it was very hard to keep calm. She had long left Terry and Hermione behind, but she kept looking over her shoulder for them regardless, willing them to be there.

   Night had well and truly set now, affording her some cover as she pelted between the buildings in the rain. But the zombie people were everywhere, like the whole town had decided in their lifeless state that outside in the downpour was much better than inside where it was warm and dry.

   She had mostly tried to stick to the back alleyways and tree lines, but sometimes there was nothing for it but to risk going on the streets and main roads. And currently she was stuck by a roundabout near a playing field and a village hall, with no other option than to cross in front of several zombies that kept bumping into each other and sparking blue electricity between themselves.

   She found herself wishing this was a real zombie film, like the ones Sirius would let her watch when he babysat, so she could just walk out moaning with her hands in front of her and blend in unnoticed. But then she realised that would mean everyone was actually dead, and couldn’t be saved.

   “Cretin,” she added to her list of insults to herself. How could she wish that, just to make her life easier, how selfish was she? Wishing wasn’t going to accomplish anything anyway, action would, and she screwed up her face trying to work up the courage to just run for it.

   Did she really think she could make it back to her house, find a necklace in the mud and the dark, then get back into town to find Terry and Hermione, all without getting touched by one of the thousands of zombies currently wandering aimlessly around? She was dreaming.

   But what choice did she have? For all they knew, they three could be the only human people left (unless they counted golf club man, which she most certainly did not). They had to keep going, right until the very end or die trying.

   She swallowed. Was she ready to die?

   She’d thought about death a lot in the last year. What had happened to her in Germany had forced her to face up to her own mortality, and she had spent many a sleepless night thinking of Seamus Finnigan, dying in the forest in Germany, dying for her, for Draco, so far from home, all cold and wet. Well, she thought, suddenly stern. At least if she died here, she would be home. That was a small comfort at least.

   She would definitely be really, really wet though.

   The rain was relentless, but she was sort of used to it by now. In fact she was grateful to it for hiding her from sight, making her a shadow in the night. But these were not normal zombies (or at least Muggle movie zombies) and they could sense her body heat. Already she could tell they were twitching, like they were sniffing the air for her scent.

   She would just need to go, now, before they could gang up on her. But as she hugged onto the village hall building, she tested her weight on her sore ankle. It was getting worse. The magic Hermione had managed to do with Terry’s wand was wearing off, and it was throbbing in her boot. She cursed and spat out rain water, enraged that now was the time she had decided to have a clumsy landing. All those hours of playing Quidditch and the most she’d managed was a black eye and sprained fingers.

   She rocked back and forth. She still had one good foot though, and the bad one wasn’t unbearable, she could still attempt to hop into a run. Which was more than any zombie could do.

   In a spurt of energy she made up her mind and dove out into the street, zigzagging between cursed people and limping as deftly as she could. They wailed and shuffled around in her wake, but as soon as she got onto the playing field there were less of them. Unfortunately though, the uneven grass was Hellish on her foot and she had to slow and pick her way more carefully. But the wooded area was only a few dozen feet away, and even by the moonlight she knew where the winding path was that would take her to her house, she’d been using it since her childhood. She would lose them in the trees.

   An old male zombie moaned, and Sarah whipped her head around. Their electricity lit them up wonderfully in the dark, so she had no trouble picking them all out. Unfortunately, they had already acquired a few friends, and they were stumbling onto the grassy area with renewed determination.

   “You just try it,” said Sarah through gritted teeth, picking up her pace and screwing up her fists to try and combat the pain of her ankle. Thump, thump, thump. She could make out the tangle of branches now, and she gasped as she made the near invisible path, swinging herself on a spindly trunk, finding the right way through the foliage.

   The wind was howling and the branches flailed like tentacles trying to grab a hold of Sarah as earnestly as the zombie townsfolk. She caught glimpses of blue light in every direction, but she stuck to the path, her wand in hand and ready to fire. She knew magic wasn’t all that effective against whatever had possessed these people, but she could still blow up the ground from under their feet if she needed to.

   The terrain was gently sloping upwards, and Sarah winced every time her left foot hit the forest floor, but she kept going. The path looked totally different at night, however she was still pretty certain she was going the right way. Something cracked loudly behind her, and she almost lost her footing entirely spinning around to see.

   She screamed for only the briefest of moments, before getting a grip and swallowing her fear. The zombie man was dark skinned, making him hard to make out in the night, but his white eyes and crackling blue electricity made him clear to see several feet below her on the path. He must have just stumbled upon it, but now he had seen her. _“Obliviate!”_ she cried, saying the first spell that came into her head, and at least managed to stun the poor man, who slumped despondently.

   She didn’t wait around to see what else he did, she knew the other spells they’d used hadn’t been all that effective, so hightailed it further up the path.

   She thought she would have reached her house by now, and her heart was hammering in her chest. The place had been crawling with zombies, and they’d been shaking at the fence by the time she and the others had left, what would she meet when she did eventually find it?

   She tried to calm herself by turning to see she had at least managed to lose the man on the path. It was dark and she was panicking, maybe it was just talking longer that she would have thought because she was extra sensitive, hyper aware?

   Shapes were moving around in the distance and grumbling a low-pitched, monotone whine. She hobbled one foot in front of the other, concentrating on breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. “There’s no place like home,” she whispered to the darkness, knowing how stupid she sounded. “There’s no place like home.”

   After a few minutes she stopped and blinked, trying to wipe cold water out from her eyes. It looked like a structure up ahead, lines that looked man-made and not like trees. She sprinted along the last few twists, and almost cried out in relief as she finally came upon the torn wreckage of the Potters’ back fence.

   The wooden panel they had climbed over had been pulled to pieces, but the rest of the fence was pretty much intact. Sarah could still hear the far off moans of zombies all around, but there wasn’t a hoard hanging around the end of her back garden like she’d feared. But the ground was trampled to a muddy, lumpy mess.

   Her face fell as she took it in. She was too afraid to light her wand in case it attracted attention, but she couldn’t see any sign at all of a necklace in the weak, dappled moonlight. She trod carefully around, moving in circles and straining her eyes to see if she could discern anything sticking out of the dirt.

   She looked at her wand. What was that summoning spell? She was sure there was one, how did it go? _“Asho?”_ she whispered, unconvincingly, but that didn’t feel right. _“Akio? Ashio? Accio?”_ Warmth flared through her fingers and her wand attempted to light up. Sarah stared at it, hardly daring to breath, then remembered to check she was still alone.

   A quick look around told her no zombies were upon her just yet, but there were several flashes of light in the distance that got her feeling worried.

   _“Accio necklace,”_ she said determinedly. _“Accio necklace, accio-”_ Something shifted in the corner of her eye. She extended her arm and held it rigid, clenching her jaw and screwing up her forehead. _“Accio necklace!”_ she cried, probably a little too loudly to be safe, but the mud wriggled and in a flash a string of silvery metal shot out and into her other open hand.

   Sarah felt tears spring to her eyes in relief. There it was, the key on the chain, the grit being washed away as she watched by the pouring rain.

   “Yes,” she breathed, grinning like a maniac. She’d done it, she’d found it, all by herself.

   Movement caught her attention though, and her brief joy was squashed as the fear came back with a crash. She could make out at least two zombies, one down the path (probably that man again) and another to her right, both less than twenty feet away.

   She put the Horcrux the only safe place she could think, which was around her neck, and slipped through the splintered wooden panel and into her garden. It felt heavy on her chest, like it was tugging at her throat, making her feel uncomfortably tight, but she didn’t trust it not to fall out of her pocket after everything she’d been through in the past few days, so ignored it as best she could.

   She needed to get back to town, but the forest was crawling with zombies slowly following her from the earlier pursuit. Perhaps she would be better trying to get through her house? There looked like there were still several cursed people milling around on the patio though, and the two she’d just seen must be close by now.

   She kept near to the fence on the right hand side, traipsing through her mum’s flower beds and ducking behind bushes and shrubs to try and keep herself hidden. The back garden was a mess from where the kitchen had exploded, with lumps of brickwork and sparkling slivers of glass everywhere. Maybe she should jump the fence where she was now, and try and make her way around the front. She could hide behind the long lines of trees that were planted along the driveway at least to get her away from the house.

   She pocketed her wand, and was just reaching for the wooden panel, when the sharp stick digging through her shorts made her remember something, and she spun around to look at the patio again.

   Hermione’s wand was buried somewhere under there.

   Sarah turned back to the fence, then cursed and looked at the rubble again. She couldn’t search through it without being seen, she was sure, but Hermione was naked without the use of magic, vulnerable. What would Sarah have done without her wand? She certainly never would have found the Horcrux in time.

   She cursed, and moved away from the fence, darting to an apple tree to try and give her a little bit of cover still. _“Accio wand,”_ she hissed, but nothing happened. She was sure Terry would have tried this before, but she cast the spell again and again, just in case. Nothing.

   She was half tempted to abandon her search and stick to her original plan and just get out of there. She’d tried, she didn’t have to, she should save herself before something bad happened. But she couldn’t. This could save Hermione’s life, how selfish would she be to give up now?

   She looked back and could see there were three zombies stumbling around by the broken fence, but they hadn’t spotted her yet. She wondered what their range was for feeling her warmth, then turned back to the patio. _“Wingardium Leviosa,”_ she said, blinking out the rain from her eyelashes and focusing everything she had on a particular cluster of brick and mortar.

   She managed to make several of the smaller bits roll away and a couple of larger chunks rise up in the air where she deposited them on the grass. “Okay,” she whispered, encouraged, checked the zombies were still all happily pottering around doing their own thing, then tried again.

   She got more or less the same result, but the rubble was shifting. She only needed to dislodge the right section and Hermione’s wand would be free to respond to her summoning charm. She performed it twice more, then tried _“Accio wand,”_ again. Still it did not appear, but Sarah had got the idea in her head now and she wasn’t going to stop, not if she could help it.

   Unfortunately, some of the zombies had other ideas. It appeared that her shifting stonework was gaining their attention, and a couple of them were now picking their way through it, their sad white eyes looking down at anything that moved about like hungry dogs. The people from the back of the fence were also slowly making their way down the middle of the long garden, and Sarah was starting to fret how long her tree would keep her hidden.

   Knowing she would probably regret it, she clamped her wand between her teeth and jumped for the first branch of the apple tree, pulling her body off the ground. She hadn’t done this in quite some time, and she could tell instantly she was bigger and heavier than the last time she had attempted it. But whilst that made it a bit of a struggle to hold her own weight, her arms reached the next branch with ease, and in moments she was several feet from the ground, hidden by the leaves and branches, and hopefully too high up to be reached by any zombie hands.

   Now she just had to pray they would not look up, or learn how to climb.

   She wrapped her left arm around the trunk and wedged herself into the tree securely.   She was able to let her twisted ankle swing freely, and it was a pleasant relief. Pushing her hair out of her eyes again, she took her wand back from her mouth and began her task once more, despite the zombies now standing around in the rubble. The three from the back fence seemed to have got distracted by the ornamental fountain and were thankfully not a bother right at that moment.

   _“Wingardium Leviosa,”_ she murmured, shifting one of the bigger lumps with some satisfaction. The zombies’ heads wobbled on their shoulders as they watched it move about, and Sarah got an idea. “That’s it,” she said, bobbing the clump up and down like she was tempting a cat with string. “Follow the nice bricks.”

   She danced it as far as she could down the garden, which was only about ten feet, before the weight got the better of her and it dropped into the grass with a damp thump. But it had done the trick, and the zombies were now bumbling a little further away from the house. The three by the fountain were also enraptured by the debris, and shuffled over to moan at it, their feet bumping into the sides and their hands swiping the air.

   Sarah carried on with her game, heaving up bits of brick as quick as she could, then waving them in front of the mob to lure them a little further away each go. By the time she had them almost back at the fence, there were none left by the house, but more were wandering in from the forest out back. Realising she wouldn’t have long, she tried the summoning spell once again.

   _“Accio wand!”_

   She didn’t even see the little stick flying through the air, until it smacked her in the face.

   “Ow!” she hissed, slapping her hand to her stinging eye and feeling a little foolish. When she could see again, she blinked, and tried the spell once more, guessing the wand must have fallen to the floor. _“Accio wand,”_ she said cautiously, and held her free hand open and ready to catch it this time as it shot up from the grass under the tree. Obediently, it did just that, and Sarah wrapped her fingers around it, victorious.

   She’d done it. The Horcrux and the wand. She’d managed to get them both.

   But she didn’t have time to revel in her glory. The zombies were getting bored, and some of them looked tempted to trundle back her way. Aiming her wand at one of the chunks she had already dumped on the grass, she hefted it up again, and bounced it through the air, grabbing the crowd’s attention. Praying no one was in her way to get hurt, she flicked her wand, and sent the rubble flying between the splintered fence panels, and out into the forest.

   “Fetch,” she said to herself, satisfied, as the group staggered slowly after the bricks. She put both hers and Hermione’s wands in her pocket, then reached for the branch below, trying her best not to use her sore foot on the descent.

   In a few moments she was back on the ground and wasted no time in running for her house. The kitchen was half gone, and there was a worrying hole in the ceiling that led up to her parents’ bedroom, but the house didn’t seem to be falling down just yet, so she would have to hope it lasted by itself a little longer.

   Cautiously, she plucked her wand from her pocket, and eased into the kitchen, dripping loudly on the tiled floor. Her breathing sounded so loud in the relative quiet of the house, even though the rain was still pounding down outside the gap where the back door used to be.

   She crept around the large wooden table, running her free hand along the counter for support as she went. There were strange noises everywhere, but she couldn’t tell if anything was in the house, or if was just the rain and wind outside.

   She edged into the living room, her eyes instinctively falling on the spot where Peter had grabbed her on that night in November, and transported them both away to Germany to use her as bait. Now there was glass all over the floor from the front window, the net curtain was billowing in the harsh breeze, and the carpet was wet from the rain. Almost all the furniture was broken, and sickening streaks of blood were splattered up the walls, along the glass shards, seeping into the curtains. Signs of the explosion she’d caused, so great it was in her terror, were evident by the blackened marks everywhere, and she sincerely hoped she hadn’t hurt anybody with the attack.

   “I’m never living here again,” said Sarah to herself, wrenching her eyes away and skimming the rest of the room. She had tried to tell herself all year that she was safe here, that bad things wouldn’t happen again. But she’d been wrong, and the urge to get out and run as fast and as far away as she could was overwhelming.

   She darted through the room, heading for what remained of the front door after the explosion, but she was stopped in her tracks. A female zombie was crouched in the landing, making a keening noise over a male one that was whimpering and flinching on the floor. Sarah’s first reaction was horror, and to flee, but it didn’t take her more than a moment to realise that the man, or boy as he looked to be, was injured in some way, and pity overtook her fear.

   “Oh no,” she said involuntarily. Had she caused this?

   The woman’s head snapped up, and Sarah couldn’t help but jump back.

   “No,” she whispered, looking over her shoulder as she stepped back into the living room. “Wait, it’s okay, I’m sorry.” The woman zombie – the boy’s mother perhaps? – stumbled to her feet and let out a guttural moan which Sarah was terrified would bring more zombies to them. “Stop, I can help him, look!” She darted to the left and aimed her wand at the boy. _“Episkey!”_

   The magic hit the boy zombie, and Sarah wasn’t sure how much was deflected like all the other spells they’d tried on them, but he definitely stopped writhing and crying as much as he had been, and took a shuddery breath.

   The mother zombie didn’t seem to care though. She mewled angrily and stomped towards Sarah, pawing and grabbing with her claw like hands. Sarah squeaked and turned to run outside again, but to her horror one of her followers from the garden had made it into the remains of the kitchen, and was moaning back at the mother.

   Panic tore through Sarah’s insides, and she stumbled backwards, tripping over the remnants of the coffee table and landing painfully on the glass nestled in the carpet. She cried out and tried to scrabble backwards as the zombie in the kitchen was joined by a friend.

   They were backing her into a corner. They were going to get her.

   Sarah let out a roar and threw a curse out from her wand, which only stopped her attackers a little but it gave her a second to jump to her feet. Without pause, she spun and dove for the window with the broken pane, and smashed the last few shards of glass out before lifting her good foot up to propel herself outside. She seized the frame with her hands, and pulled herself off the floor, the rain already hitting her face again.

   Then something grabbed her boot.

   She screamed, digging her fingers into the wood and bricks, and whipped her head around.

   The mother had her hands on her shoe, and was pulling her back into the house. Her fingers must have only been centimetres away from brushing Sarah’s leg, and she didn’t know if tights would hold back the curse like leather.

   With a cry she kicked her sore, twisted foot into the woman’s chest, causing an blast of pain to tear through her joints. But she relinquished her grip, and Sarah wasted no time at all in throwing herself through the window frame and out into the rain.

 

***

 

   Harry didn’t turn back and look at Draco. He knew whatever they were about to face was going to be bad enough, he didn’t want to torment himself any further than he already had.

   Besides, Draco had Godric’s sword, and Harry had seen how he could use it. He definitely wouldn’t want to be on the end of that blade when it got wielded out.

   Thinking defensively, Harry held up his wand as he crunched down the gravel path towards the graveyard that, according to Draco, have never been a part of Malfoy Manor. Snow fell silently through the trailing mist that was snaking around the headstones up ahead, creeping down the path and over the damp grass. All Harry could hear was his own breathing and his footfalls, and it was unnerving.

   How had they got here, where had the Rhansyk gone? He couldn’t imagine they would just leave Draco and him alone after the fight they had put up. Jack the Ripper had done his level best to kill Harry, he was sure of it. He rubbed his aching shoulder, the dull pain gradually becoming worse after Draco had fixed the dislocation. Harry briefly switched his wand into his left hand to see if that would be any better, but it felt so unsecure he swapped back almost immediately. He’d rather make his arm throb and know he could cast spells than aim with his shaky, inexperienced left side.

   He slowed as he came to the edge of the cemetery, his eyes roaming through the moonlight, trying to see if there was anyone lurking in the dark waiting for him. He felt such a strong pull to walk this way he knew it wasn’t natural, and when unnatural forces compelled you do to something you were an idiot if you weren’t cautious. He chose not to light up his wand, as his eyes had grown accustomed to the moonlight, but he was tempted when he looked into the deep, dark shadows pocketed between the gravestones.

   The grounds sloped away into a thick looking forest to his left, and the house loomed over to his right. Harry took a long breath of cool air, and walked forward in between the graves.

   Why was he being drawn here, for what purpose? He was still stubbornly arguing with himself that he and Draco should not have split up, that they should have faced each Voldemort together.

   As many questions as Harry had tumbling around in his head, he had no doubt that it was the Voldemorts running the show here. He wondered for the thousandth time if Hermione and Ron had been able to find and destroy their Horcruxes. It didn’t sound like it was the easiest task in the world, though Alex had kindly explained that he himself had already done so, when he stabbed Riddle’s diary with the Basilisk tooth.

   That made Harry reel slightly, that he had already destroyed a part of his Voldemort’s soul without even knowing it. That he was oblivious to the fact a few years ago and now it was central to the unravelling of the entire Multiverse, well it made him think what else he might have missed?

   Or would it even matter? If he and Draco couldn’t stop this he would never get the chance to find out if he’d let any other vital information pass him by, and neither would anybody else.

   Harry arbitrarily turned right down a row of tombs. He worried how Alex and Draco’s Hermione were doing. They had not looked good when the boys had left them on top of the mountain after the Rhansyk had attacked them on Alex’s doorstep. If people could just heal themselves well again in Limbo, why didn’t everybody do it? Harry didn’t really understand the rules.

   He felt his hand rise up almost unconsciously, and touch the cold stone of one of the graves. He paused to take in the still graveyard, then glanced down at the inscription.

   He had not really been expecting anything other than weathered letters that meant nothing.

   He had definitely not been expecting it to read _‘Lily Potter.’_

   Harry jumped back and retracted his left hand like it had been scalded. His heart rate, which had calmed a little in the quiet respite, leapt up again and he regarded the headstone in horror.

   It looked fresh, like it had just been erected. _‘Lily Potter,’_ it read. _‘Loving wife and mother. Born 30-01-60, Died 31-10-81’_

   Harry had never seen his mother’s grave, was this real? Did he conjure up this graveyard like Draco had brought to life his childhood home? His heart hammered and his skin ran cold, why was he so startled? He felt like he was looking at his mum’s still-warm corpse, not an imagining of her headstone.

   As his shock lessened ever so slightly, Harry’s eyes began to focus on the other gravestones, and his gut contracted. _‘James Potter,’_ read the next one. _‘Loving husband and father. Born 27-03-60, Died 31-10-81’._

   He stumbled backwards on the frozen ground, backing into a different headstone. He spun, like it had been a person he had collided with, and desperately raked his eyes over the inscription. _‘Sirius Black, Valued friend and Godfather, Born 23-09-59, Died 18-06-96’._

   “No,” said Harry aloud. “No, no.” Sirius wasn’t dead, he’d saved him, he was dead in that _other_ universe.

   But so it went on as he tripped, blurry eyed to the next grave, and the next. _‘Cedric Diggory’, ‘Seamus Finnigan’, ‘Narcissa Malfoy’, ‘Ron Weasley’, ‘Neville Longbottom’._

   “NO!” shouted Harry, fumbling with his hands as his knees betrayed him and he stumbled into a different grave that also bore the name of his father. Everywhere he looked, the names repeated themselves, bombarding him, overwhelming him.

   He shoved himself off of the cool stone and found his feet again. They began pounding on the hard ground as he blindly steered through the lose rows of graves, all bearing names of people he’d been responsible for their deaths.

   “Aww,” cat-called a voice, and Harry only just managed to jerk his path out of the way from the Rhansyk that leapt from behind a large tomb adorned with a griffin unfurling its wings. The Rhansyk soon righted himself, he was a big brute of a butcher, complete with blood stains and a wicked looking clever lodged half way through his neck. He was not the one that had spoken though.

   “Leaving so soon?” cooed the same voice from atop the mausoleum, and the charred and burnt face of Bellatrix Lestrange appeared from over the edge.

Harry didn’t even give them a moment’s pause, he was hurtling through the snow, darting between headstones that all read the same now-familiar names. Get to the woods, he thought.

   A jet of purple light shot into the gravestone he ran past, the exploding rock digging into his side as it jettisoned and making him stumble, but he kept on going. He didn’t even turn to see how many monsters were now following him. He could tell from the voices there were several.

   It was a trap, he knew it had been a trap, and he’d let Draco walk off alone. Were there Rhansyk laying in wait for him too, were they the ones that had drawn them apart. Or Bellatrix? Was the other one here too, the second of the pair that had chased them into the jungle?

   Harry hoped against the odds that this perimeter might stop his pursuers once again, but as he broke through the tree line and fled between the oaks he heard no falter in the pairs of feet crashes only meters behind him.

   _“Confringo!”_ he yelled, pointing his wand over his shoulder and rocketing out a violent stream of fire that caused several trees to erupt into flames. He heard a couple of Rhansyk wail in pain (or anger, he wasn’t convinced they could feel pain) but he could tell there were still plenty on his heels.

   The trees whipped and rustled hastily around him, animated by their chase and the wind blowing the snowflakes through in thick clumps that stung Harry’s face. He hadn’t thought them cold earlier, or the air temperature low, but it was starting to feel more and more like a true winter’s night the further he ran.

   _“Sectumsempra!”_ he tried instead, but the spell was off and hit nothing, let alone the Rhansyk it was intended to unravel, so Harry decided to stick to bigger, more destructive spells. _“Expulso!”_ he bellowed, taking out several more trees and Rhansyk as he hurtled on.

He needed to escape, he needed to lose them. His shoulder was causing him blinding pain and he gasped and grunted as he ran, tears streaming down his face from the icy air and throbbing ache. More spells few over his head, but he suspected Bellatrix was the only one with a wand which gave him the smallest of advantages. The dozen or so Rhansyk were still gaining on him, his feet fumbling through tiredness and panic on the frozen tree roots and jagged stones.

The forest was much darker than the graveyard, and Harry was grateful for the full moon glinting through the stripped tree branches. As he scrambled up a verge, a throwing axe went whizzing over his head and thrummed into a nearby oak.

   “I could do this all day baby Potter!” cried Bellatrix gleefully, and Harry spun and stumbled down the other side of the small hill, gravity helping him move quicker but also making him unsteady. He could see the Rhansyk hopping around unnaturally from the corner of his eyes, almost flanking him they were so close. It could only be mere moments before the pounced on him.

   “We don’t want to _hurt_ you!” cackled Bellatrix in her sing-song voice. Harry couldn’t tell where she was without turning his head, but she seemed to be everywhere at once. Maybe his mind was just playing tricks on with him all the confusion and adrenaline. He reached level ground again and pounded on. He’d lost all sense of direction and couldn’t tell where the house was anymore. Why couldn’t he change the landscape by will, why couldn’t he make himself disappear like they had from old London?

   He bashed into a gnarly tree and spun himself off before being able to pick up his speed again. A Chinese Rhansyk woman almost grabbed him, but he flailed out with his wand and manage to blast her back.

   Maybe he should run for the house, find Draco, who knew where these woods lead? But as he pushed himself off another tree and leapt over a shallow brook he knew he still had no idea what direction that might be.

   Suddenly his feet went out from under him, tangled in a length of leather weighted down with rocks tied at either end. Harry crashed into the forest floor with a bellow, slamming his bad arm into the dirt with such force he felt a gag of nausea, and sending his wand flying several feet away. He rolled and tried to kick his bound feet around so he could stand, but he was deftly caught and the Rhansyk were on him in seconds.

   “Hey there pretty boy!” crowed what looked like the rope’s thrower as he seized Harry’s collar and hauled him upwards. The man was wiry and gaunt, with a feeble attempt at a moustache and a lifeless glass eye. His working, red eye glared at Harry as his mouth split into a broken toothy grin. “Ooh, you are a pretty boy!”

   Another pair of hands grabbed Harry’s shoulders and he screamed out in involuntary pain. A tall muscular man with a shaved, tattooed head took hold of him from the one eyed Rhansyk, and sensing that Harry was in pain shook him to cause more.

   Harry cried out and tried to kick with his wrapped up legs, but he couldn’t reach anything. The dozen or so Rhansyk were surrounding him, and Harry felt dread sweep over him, engulfing him. “What do you want!” he shouted, gritting his teeth in a pitiful attempt to block out the pain.

   “You?” cooed Bellatrix. “I should have though that much to be obvious?”

   The big man threw Harry to the floor, and he grunted and jerked as the pain from his shoulder rattled through the rest of his body. “Why!” he spat out through dirt and dried leaves. “If Voldemort wants me dead, then just do it already!”

   Bellatrix weaved her way through the small crowd, a peel of laughter trilling from her throat. A couple of the Rhansyk joined in; one with a large gut guffawed and wiped a handkerchief over his sweating brow, the big one that had just thrown Harry down crossed his arms and glared.

   “So eager to die,” whispered Bellatrix dramatically. She swooped down and seized Harry’s face, squeezing his cheeks. “Need I remind you that _you_ came to us,” she hissed, her wild eyes having trouble keeping focus on his own. “I was furious when you left me and my sister on the outskirts of that mad woman’s jungle, and then _ta-da!_ There you were.”

   Harry didn’t say anything. His mind was racing; so they weren’t brought here by the Voldemorts, they had brought themselves, was that was she was saying? But that pulling sensation that had drawn them apart, what had that been?

   Bellatrix became suddenly board of him and let his face go. “Tie his hands,” she snapped at Glass-Eye. “Release his feet, he can walk back to the house.”

   Harry braced himself as his hands were grabbed and his tender shoulder protested, but within a second it was over, the new rope was tight around his wrists and the skinny man was retrieving his throwing weapon, freeing Harry’s ankles as Bellatrix took his wand from the floor and pocketed it.

   Fight back! a small part of his brain screamed. No point, admitted the rest. If they wanted to kill him they would have done it, he might as well go see what Voldemort wanted from him, what else was there to do? He knew this line of thinking was absurd, but he really didn’t see an alternative. Maybe Hermione and Ron had been able to destroy the Horcruxes, he thought with a little flurry of hope as the Rhansyk regrouped and began marching along in a line through the forest. At least he’d been right, at least Voldemort was really here and if his Horcrux was gone Harry might have a chance to defeat him.

   That was a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ and ‘mights’.


	13. Lights (Part Two)

Chapter Seven - Part Two

 

   Hermione was not the best at playing it cool, but she tried her very best to affect nonchalance as Barty Crouch Jr dangled the Basilisk tooth in front of her face. Draco had told them whilst they’d been sat in that office in the Ministry about how Crouch had taken the Basilisk under his care after the attack on the school in this universe, and for once luck was on her side. Crouch had chosen to keep a souvenir that just happened to contain deadly poison, poison according to Seamus was strong enough to destroy the Horcrux.

   Crouch raised an eyebrow. “Well?” he asked. “Will this be good enough to make the spell work?”

   “Yes,” Hermione stammered. “I’m sure that will be fine.” She put her hand out for it, but as Crouch held it up, he seemed to change his mind.

   “What else do you need for the spell?” he asked. Hermione froze.

   “Oh,” she said, racking her brains. “Um, well, it’s quite a tricky potion.”

   Crouch nodded, and to her dismay retracted his hand and slipped the necklet into his pocket. “I’ll keep a hold of that for now then. You will instruct Quirinus on how to perform the spell, and he will get you the supplies you need.”

   Hermione tried to swallow. He was calling her bluff. “And then I can go home, to my reality?” she said.

   The corner of Crouch’s mouth curled into what might have been an attempt at a smile. “Once we’re through, you can do what you like,” he said.

   Hermione knew he had no intention of letting her walk. “Okay,” she breathed, hoping she looked like she believed him. “So we need a few things,” she said, addressing the group like they were just in a class at school. “We don’t need the Orbis spell anymore, so I guess you can stop that now and we can use that cauldron. The people can go back to normal.”

As soon as she said it she regretted it. Barty Crouch took a step towards her, and gently took her chin between his fingers. “You guess wrong,” he said softly, his eyes locked with hers. “I have no faith that a little smart-mouthed Mudblood really has the answer we are looking for, so until I see a portal, the town of Godric’s Hollow can keep working.”

   Hermione tried not to shake. “Sure,” she stammered over the rain. “Sure, no, that’s fine. We can, um, get another cauldron.”

   “We can get another cauldron,” repeated Crouch with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he let her go and walked away.

   Hermione couldn’t help but exhale and take a step backwards. Unfortunately, Martin was there waiting to grab her by both her shoulders. “Right, where to boss?” he barked, giving her a shake that her throbbing head did not appreciate.

   Crouch started replying, something about going back to base to pick up supplies, but Hermione tuned him out. Because a zombified Terry Boot had managed to push his way to the front of the crowd trying to get to the Death Eaters through their shield spells. He had white eyes and rippled with blue electricity, just like all the others, but it was his poor muddy socks that really made her heart ache. He had given her his trainers, and she had let him lose his mind.

   She pushed down the sob that threatened to hiccup from her throat, and turned away from him, not giving any indication she knew who he was in case the Death Eaters decided to hurt him in some way. The group started walking down the playground anyway, back towards the road and away from the school, so she soon lost sight of him in the throng.

   I’ll save you, Hermione promised him silently. I’ll save you all.

   They pushed through the clamouring zombies who bounced pitifully off of the shield charms around them. It made Hermione nervous that she didn’t have one, and was only insulated by those belonging to the Death Eaters.

She wanted to know where they were going, but decided to keep her mouth shut and just listen. She was walking a very fine line, and was pretty confident the brutes surrounding her would harm her the first chance they got.

   The road was still littered with cursed townsfolk, moping about in the rain, letting out the occasional wail as their electricity sparked. So they were one big enigma machine, Hermione thought, and chided herself for not realising that before. She’d only considered the symptoms, and not properly thought about what linking thousands of muted brains could do. It was very advanced magic though, something she’d only read about once or twice; Quirrell may have been a sycophant, but he knew his stuff.

   Which was going to make fooling him very hard. She could fob him off with the Dimensional Leap spell for a while, but soon he would spot that her theory didn’t match, and then she would be in hot water.

   They had reached the roundabout and were heading back into town, which Hermione wasn’t sure was a good or a bad thing. Even if she did manage to get her hands on the tooth, how would she find Sarah? She could try to send a Patronus, but the chances of her getting Terry’s wand back as well as the necklet were so small they were laughable. Then her blood ran cold. What if _Sarah_ sent one? A Patronus message could completely blow her cover, reveal everything about the Horcrux in front of the Death Eaters, and alert them that Hermione had an ally somewhere in the town still and that she was tricking them. She would just have to pray that didn’t happen, or that she could get away before it did.

   Infuriatingly, she could just see the leather poking out of Barty’s robes up ahead, but had neither the skill to snatch it unnoticed, or the energy to possibly outrun the Death Eaters in a pursuit. But she needed to get away from them soon. What she needed was a distraction.

   They turned into a collection of shops, lining three sides of a square car park, and marched over to a gift shop that had hand-painted wine glasses and wooden toys in the window display. A young man was practically asleep by the entrance, but snapped awake as Crouch and the others approached.

   “Sir,” he said with a nod, wand out like he’d been guarding the place efficiently all along, but Crouch swept past him with barely even a look.

   A bell tinkled as they walked mercifully out of the rain, and found several other Death Eaters were inside. They had pushed the displays against the walls and several were sat at a lone table in the centre of the small shop with parchment and books on. They looked up, scared.

   “S-sir,” stammered a young woman. “We weren’t expecting you yet, we haven’t-” But Crouch cut her off.

   “It’s fine,” he drawled. “We have another avenue to explore for the time being, you can carry on a little longer.”

   The half a dozen witches and wizards seemed to breath a collective sigh, and Hermione tried to make herself as invisible as possible. Unfortunately though, she had not been forgotten.

“What do we need?” asked Quirrell, and it occurred to Hermione that he had no stutter to his speech unlike when he’d been her teacher. “This is a Muggle store out front, but the back has genuine supplies.”

   Hermione hugged herself and shook. She was cold but her fever was still burning her up. “Um,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Patchwork root, pixie dust, several different crystals, Melody Hair-”

   Crouch clicked his fingers at her again. “Write it down, for Heaven’s sake,” he muttered, eyes searching the room. “Before I fall asleep. Gideon, Stark, come with me.” He stormed off into the back room behind the till, and Hermione looked around helplessly. A boy not much older than her peeked over his glasses from where he was sitting at the table, then picked up a sheet of parchment.

   “Here,” he said quietly, his eyes flicking towards the back room, and Hermione wondered if these people were in fact Death Eaters at all. They were obviously working on how to get to Limbo too from the books laid open in front of them, but she wondered if that had been their choice to research that particular subject, and what their penalty for failure would be.

   “Thanks,” she said, taking the paper and shuffling over to the till under the scrutinising glare of Martin. She fished a pen out of a pot full of mismatched stationary from the other side of the counter, and wrote down the ingredients she had already said.

   “Exact measurements,” fretted Quirrell, hovering over her. She gripped onto the biro tightly, but managed a terse smile and a nod, before adding quantities to her items.

   “Are you sure that raven’s bark won’t counter-act the Melody Hair?” asked Quirrell, taping on the paper. Hermione froze, of course it would, but she managed to shake her head quickly.

   “No,” she said, swallowing and racking her brains. “You balance it out again.”

   Quirrell scowled from beneath his turban. “With what?”

   Hermione could feel the eyes of those at the table on her. “Well, with uh, with mushrooms of course.”

   Quirrell didn’t look impressed. “Mushrooms?” he repeated.

   “Yes,” said Hermione crossly. “The little blues ones, oh whatever are they called...?”

   “Nightlock,” offered the boy with the glasses.

   Hermione pointed at him. “Nightlock, precisely. It dampens the acidity.”

   Quirrell stared at her, and then the boy. He sighed. “Yes I suppose you’re right,” he said, with a wave of his hand.

   Martin, Hermione’s pseudo bodyguard, was obviously becoming restless. “What do we do with all this stuff?” he demanded, snatching the parchment from her. She snatched it right back, much to his confusion, added one last thing, then held it back out for him.

   “You go find it,” she said. “That’s what.”

   Martin scowled. “Why don’t you get it?” he snapped back.

“Because I’m the prisoner,” replied Hermione, crossed her arms, and sat on the little stool behind the counter. She was too tired to be scared any more. Her only chance to escape was to throw everything into her charade, and to take any opportunity to get away. “I can’t be trusted to wander around,” she added in irony.

   This line of reasoning troubled Martin for a moment, before he held out the parchment to the table, the nearest occupant of which was once again the glasses boy. “You lot,” he said grumpily. “Find this stuff.”

   The boy stared at the parchment like it was a bomb, but the women who had spoken to Crouch brushed back her dry, wavy blonde hair and took it. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said tiredly, and slipped off into the back room where Crouch had vanished, Quirrell eagerly behind her.

   Hermione was once again the subject of the table’s gaze, until Martin growled at them and they jumped back to work. Hermione tried to keep her breathing steady now she had nothing to occupy her, and wrung her hands as her eyes trailed over the contents of the gift shop. Glass wind chimes twirled and tinkled above their heads, handmade photo frames with black and white professional photos inside stood next to oversized keys with the numbers ‘18’ and ‘21’ as their handles. A shelf full of teddies made from patchwork material had been knocked to the ground, and they lay smiling at her as if there wasn’t a care to be had in the world.

   What do you know? thought Hermione crossly as she dripped rainwater on the wooden floorboards and shivered.

   It was almost when she wasn’t looking that she spotted it. Behind one of the pushed back shelves, one littered with broken hand-painted china, that she saw part of a cardboard display, one that didn’t really fit with the rest of the shop. _“Bonfire Night! November 5 th!” _it read in brightly coloured letters by even brighter pictures of explosions going off in the night sky. Fireworks night was only a few weeks away, and this shop had obviously got in a temporary counter to sell rockets and sparklers.

   Hermione let her eyes dart about the room, but the Death Eaters seemed more interested in the people at the table than her, the wandless Mudblood. Surely a shop like this would have novelty lighters, where were they?

   Suddenly she felt quite stupid. If there were lighters, in a room full of fireworks...

   They would be with her behind the counter.

   Casually she leant back, her eyes searching to her left but seeing nothing, then right, by the till and wall. And there they were, in a box marked _“59p Each”,_ dozens of different coloured lighters with motorbikes, kittens and palm trees on. Hardly daring to breath, she slowly lifted her right hand, never taking her eyes from Martin and the others.

   “We can’t read your writing,” cried a breathless voice, and Hermione snatched her hand back like she had been burnt. She spun on her stool to see the frizzy blonde hurrying from the back room, pointing at the parchment. “We can’t – I mean – what’s this?”

   She thrust it in front of Hermione’s nose, but her heart was racing so fast she could barely focus. “Um,” she said, taking the paper into her own hands to steady it. “Exploding Ginger Eyelashes,” she read aloud, cursing at her terrible handwriting. “Seven of them.”

   The woman looked relieved and darted off again. “You really know what you’re doing?” said a Death Eater with a scowl. This one was copper skinned and slender, with a long nose and stubble.

   “Yes,” said Hermione. “I think so.” The copper skinned man scoffed.

   “You better do better than ‘think so’ Mudblood,” he snarled. “For your sake anyway.”

   Hermione gave him a weak smile, and he turned away to mutter to the woman who Hermione had seen looking for Terry in the playground. The table were hard at work, but Martin had decided to come and lean on the counter, his face practically in hers, and he began drumming his fingers in boredom. She cursed silently. She didn’t have time for this.

   She made to stand from the stool, and purposefully got her foot caught on the lower rung. “Oof!” she cried, falling forwards, swinging her hands out. She managed to catch the stationary pot, as well as a tree of keyrings, and sent them all flying.

   “Oi!” snapped Martin, leaning back with his arms outstretched as the debris clattered all around him, but his eyes were on the floor, and Hermione flicked out her fingers, and seized the first lighter she could reach.

   “I’m so sorry!” she cried, slipping it in her pocket. The strain in her voice was real and therefore believable as she ran around to pick everything up. “My feet are numb, I didn’t mean too-”

   “Oh get out the way,” Martin barked, pushing her aside. Good, thought Hermione, she needed to get further into the shop. She stumbled further than she needed to, in the direction of the fireworks. They were behind wooden slatted shelves, the kind without a back so she could reach through the damaged plates and teacups.

   “I’m so sorry,” she said again, but Martin just lazily pulled out his wand and swept the clutter back onto the counter.

   “No harm done,” said the boy with glasses kindly, earning himself a cuff over the back of the head.

   “Shut up,” grunted Martin, making the other Death Eaters laugh.

   “Some genius you are,” started a chubby man with watery eyes, dancing from foot to foot and waving his hands about, and the laughter continued. _“Look at me,”_ he mimicked shrilly. _“I’m from a parallel universe, ooh!”_

   He pranced up to Hermione, and she backed herself up to the shelving. “Stop,” she quavered, throwing her hands behind her back. “I’m on your side.”

   “Oh the Mudblood’s on _our_ side,” sneered a different woman with poker straight black hair under her hood. “Oh I feel so much better, don’t you?”

   The Death Eaters carried on guffawing, but Hermione had the lighter in her hand. She was clumsy, fumbling over odd shapes, but her other hand was feeling for something round and cylindrical. Something with a taper.

   “Barty’s no fool,” said Martin with distain. “Quirrell maybe, but not Crouch.”

   “And once he knows you’re full of it, he’ll give the word,” said the black haired woman. “And we can have some fun with you.”

   Hermione didn’t have to fake her fear, however the sweat on her brow was not from terror, but concentration. All her fingers could feel were the sharp edges of china and soft, sanded wood.

   “Bet you wish you had your wand now, _genius,”_ jeered a gangly man from the table, earning a scowl from the bespeckled boy.

   “You wouldn’t still be standing if I did,” Hermione couldn’t help but growl back, and the Death Eaters hooted with mirth. But her fingers had found something very promising indeed.

   “Give her your wand Singh!” crowed the watery eyed man. The copper skinned man, Singh, glowered.

   “Don’t be a moron,” he berated, and Hermione tied to scrape her thumb along the lighter. She’d never used one before though, and the spark wouldn’t catch.

   The watery eyed man snapped from merriment to hostility. “Oh yeah,” he said, squaring up to Singh. “I’m so stupid am I?” he rumbled. Hermione tried again. “At least I didn’t mistake my own fiancé for a-”

   “That has nothing to do with this!” screeched Singh, but the woman from the playground raised her hand.

   “Shut up,” she commanded, her eyes flicking about the room. “Do you hear that?”

   “What?” asked Hermione innocently. “This?” And lobbed the lit, spitting firework into the middle of the room.

   It exploded in a spectacular display of colour and screaming whistles. People wailed and ducked and threw spells at it, but Hermione had already spun around, hoping nothing would hit her unprotected back, and ran the lighter over the rest of the display, catching as much paper and wax on fire as she could.

   She pulled her hand away however at catching sight of a particularly huge tube tucked in the corner of the cardboard stand, and snatched it up.

   “GET HER!” bellowed a voice, but another firework took off from the display and Hermione only just dove out of the way, her prize in hand. The back door had opened and more people were yelling, but the whole display was on fire now and several rockets exploded at once, filling the small shop with sparks, smoke and screams.

   She powered her exhausted legs into action, sprinting for the front door with spells being fired at her head.

Undeterred she flew back out into the rain and the night, protecting the large firework with her body from the deluge. Cries and peppered bangs followed her out, but she only had to make it a little further. She dashed across the car park and under the awning of a bait shop opposite the exploding gift shop.

   “Remember, remember,” she gasped to herself. “The fifth of November.” Her fingers found the lighter again, flicking at the stubborn catch, unable to find the spark. “Remember, remember-” People were spilling out of the shop, looking for her in the dark and the rain, extinguishing the flames from their clothes and coughing out smoke. “Remem-” her voice caught and her fingers shook badly. “Remember the, remember the – fifth.” The wicker caught alight, and the _Big Daddy™ Extravaganza_ blazed into life, seconds away from erupting.

   “Of November!” she cried, bolting up towards the road again. The Death Eaters shouted at the sight of the flame, but Hermione had angled it out of the awning, and in a moment it set off like a machine gun, sending blinding lights into the sky with almighty bangs that hurt her ears.

   She couldn’t tell if they had seen what direction she had run, or if any more than a couple of the blasts had made it into the air. All she could do was hope, hope and pray.

   That Sarah had seen her sign, and would come with the Horcrux looking for the Basilisk tooth.

 

***

 

   Draco’s head was swimming with fog. His forehead was cold but his wrists were hot, and something was pinching at his feet.

   Consciousness came flooding back to him, and with a startled cry he woke up, bound tightly to a wooden chair, darkness engulfing most of the room save for a few shafts of moonlight.

   “Mum!” he cried, yanking at his ropes and spinning his head around.

   The laugh came again, the one he had heard before the pain. “Oh,” said a familiar voice. “Mummy dearest couldn’t make it. I’m sure she’s sorry about that.”

   Draco pulled and fought against the ropes. “Who are you!” he demanded. “What have you done with my mother!”

   A shape slunk from the shadows, and Draco could have kicked himself. There stood his Aunt Bellatrix, pleased as punch in her Rhansyk form. She was one half of the pair that had chased him and Harry into the jungle, the one with her jade and gold necklace growing out of her collar bones like stalagmites.

   “You!” hissed Draco in rage.

   “Me,” agreed Bellatrix, her face splitting into a grin like an overripe melon. “You are too predictable dear nephew.”

“Where is my mother!” he shouted at her as she stepped closer. “What did you do to her?”

   Bellatrix pouted. “Aren’t you listening?” she said sadly. “Mummy dearest isn’t here, she never was.” She leaned forward and rested her stitched up hands on Draco’s knees, faking concern. “I made her up.”

   Realisation sank into Draco’s guts like cold water seeping through a sponge. He’d been chasing a ghost, the one person he had no control over his emotions with. Bellatrix had made her appear somehow and played him like a puppet.

   Shame was closely followed by fury. “Fine,” he spat. “What do you want with me? What’s with the house, why bring me here?” He sneered. “Voldemort must know we want to kill him.”

   Bellatrix shrieked with laugher and spun around irritatingly. “Oh you brought yourself here Baby Malfoy,” she sang. “You made the house look this way. We were perfectly happy in a cottage by the sea before you and Baby Potter popped up.”

   Draco swallowed, not sure whether or not to believe here. “I wouldn’t know how to move around Limbo,” he said. “Even if I wanted to.”

   Bellatrix shrugged and twirled. “All I know is my Master needed you, and there you arrived, like a head on a silver platter, a lamb to the slaughter.”

   She grinned like it was the funniest joke in the world, and danced her way over to something glinting on the floor. “You may be wondering why you’re all tied up?” Draco didn’t respond, just yanked at his ropes again. “You see, you have the nicest toy,” continued his aunt. “But when I try to play with it something nasty happens.” She nudged it with her toe, and Draco frowned. It was his sword, Godric’s sword, lying prone on the wooden floor.

   “Nasty?” he repeated.

   “It burns!” flared Bellatrix in anger, swooping back over towards him. She shoved her shiny red palms in his face, then slapped him. “Tell me how to pick up the lion’s weapon, tell me how to make it mine!”

   Draco blinked and winced, his mouth hanging open to try and stretch the stinging flesh of his cheek. “What?” he uttered, not following.

   That got him a slap on the other cheek. He roared out and stamped his feet, making the whole chair rock. “What, WHAT!” he shouted. “You tied me up so you could stab me with the sword? You always were a coward.”

   Bellatrix flung her wand behind her head, but then left her arm hanging, her hand gripped around the wood in a tight fist as she bit down on her teeth. After a deep breath, she dropped her arm, smiled tightly, and walked back over to the sword.

   “Dearest nephew,” she simpered, clasping her hands together and nudging the sword hilt quickly with her boot. The way she jerked back made Draco think she’s been burnt, despite the thick leather. “This is a very powerful sword. You were holding it when you came in the room. Now I would like to hold it. I would like to use it. Why can’t I pick it up?”

   Draco looked between her and the weapon, then the memory of the Viking boys, taking turns to try and pick up the blade, came to his mind. They had all got burnt by its touch and dropped it, but not him.

   “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I think maybe only I can hold it, Godric gave it to me.”

   _“Crucio!”_ screamed Bellatrix. Draco jerked horribly against the ropes that bound him and cried out, biting his tongue. “I want it!” shrieked Bellatrix. “He gave it to you, you give it to me! Tell me it’s mine!” She grabbed his face and pointed her wand at his eye.

   “No,” Draco panted. “I’m not letting you have it just so you can stab me!”

   Without a word, Bellatrix reached down for Draco’s little finger, cradled it in her own hand, then fired a spell at it.

   He heard the crack of the bone breaking before he felt the sudden onslaught of pain.   He roared out and gasped, tears welling at his eyes. “Idiot boy,” she whispered as he shuddered in his chair. She bent over so her face was level with his, but he could only keep his eyes focus on the floor and he panted and ground his teeth. “If I wanted to stab you, I would conjure a blade and run you through. If I wanted to kill you, I would use my favourite spell, I’m very good at it. No,” she smiled, leant her hands on his knees again, and rocked herself from left to right. “You are to be brought to my master alive. But that doesn’t mean I won’t break you down a little before, especially if I can get what I want.”

   As Draco’s eyes were on the floor he didn’t fully register her wand was raised again until it was too late and his right index finger was also bent back and broken.

   He screamed and swallowed down a sob. He would not let her see him cry, he would not bow down to her. “It’s not my sword!” he barked out instead. “I can tell you you can have it all you like, it won’t work!”

   Bellatrix hit him with a spell that felt like he’d been smashed by a wrecking ball, the force to his gut actually scooting the chair back a couple of feet. “Say the words properly,” she hissed. “Tell me it’s mine!”

   “It’s yours,” snarled Draco, fully confident the words would achieve nothing. “Bellatrix Lestrange, I bequeath the Sword of Gryffindor to you. May you enjoy its sharp stabbiness with every swing.”

   He hoped his sarcasm came across crystal clear.

   Bellatrix smiled like a predator, her red eyes alight with victory. But just as Draco had predicted, when she skipped over and reached down for the hilt, she was rewarded with the same intense burn that left her howling out in fury and pain.

   “Do it again!” she screeched at Draco, blasting him with the fiery Crucio curse. “Say it right!”

   Draco managed to draw breath. Without looking at them he could have sworn his fingers were split open and dripping blood the pain was so bad, and his skin was alive with the tingling residual electricity. “I _told_ you,” he gasped. “It belongs to _Godric Gryffindor._ No one else has been able to touch it but me, only _he_ can give it to you!”

   Bellatrix’s face was like thunder. With a flick of her wand she tipped Draco’s chair over so he crashed onto his left side. “Fine,” she snapped. _“Wingardium Leviosa.”_

   She levitated the sword up from the ground and let it hover. “I will bring it with us, I’m sure The Dark Lord will have a thing or two to suggest that might trump your precious Gryffindor. _Relashio”_

   The ropes binding Draco to the wooden chair fell away, but as he jerked instinctively away into a foetal position, they were re-tied around his wrists. “Voldemort’s here?” he said, confirming what he and Harry had suspected.

“Be quiet,” she said dispassionately. _“Mobilicorpus.”_ Draco felt his battered body raise off the ground several inches.

   “Hey!” he cried, twisting about.

   _“Crucio!”_ said Bellatrix without hesitation. Draco thought he might have been used to the spell now he had been hit with it so many times in quick succession, but this blast was just as vicious as all the others had been, tearing along his flesh with searing pain. “Come along now Baby Malfoy, we’re going for a little walkies.”

   Draco didn’t give a reply. He figured his aunt didn’t need one. Instead, he found himself being dragged, partially suspended, out from the servant’s room into the corridor again, the Sword of Gryffindor bobbing along beside them. He was reminded of Sunny, the ball of sunshine he’d conjured in Germany and not had the heart to dispel since, bobbing along outside the windows of Hogwarts school in his wake. Was he still around, hovering outside the History of Magic classroom, waiting forlornly for Draco to return?

   He grunted as his head hit a step when they ascended the spiralling staircase Draco had past when he thought he’d been chasing after his mother. It must have been no chore at all for Bellatrix to replicate her sister’s voice, to project an image of her bound and unconscious on the chair. Draco cursed himself yet again for his stupidity.

   He managed to keep his head up enough not to hit any more of the steps, but Bellatrix did not seem overly concerned with steering him safely through this odd replica of his house. His body kept dropping parts suddenly to the floor, jarring him, and almost every corner he crashed into, scraping and bruising his skin. His broken fingers ached horribly, but something told him there was worse to come, so he tried to block the pain from his mind.

   He clamped his jaw shut, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a reaction. She had told him upfront she wasn’t going to kill him, she was going to take him to Voldemort, so his life was safe for now. Whether or not it would be once Voldemort got a hold of him was another question, but until then he could keep fighting, keep trying.

   He was looking around for something he could try and snag; in his real house there were plenty of suits of armour hanging around that might have helped him cut his hands free, but this altered version was empty and lifeless. He craned his head, to inspect the walls, look for tables coming up that he could try and grab whilst Bellatrix was forging on ahead, when he heard the noise.

   He froze, his shoulder crashing into the burgundy carpet before floating back up again. Draco strained his ears, and after a moment the noise came again. Some faint cry floating through the air from far away. “Are you expecting to fool me with my mother’s voice again?” he said in disgust to his aunt. “Seems a little redundant now, don’t you think?” He had not really expecting her to answer, but he’d underestimated her delight in torment.

   “Oohoo,” she whispered in a sing-song voice. “You can hear them, our little pets.”

   Draco shifted his wrists under the tight ropes and glanced into another darkened room as they moved past. The layout of the house was completely wrong now, they were trudging past the kitchens by the looks of it, and they were definitely not supposed to be on the third floor.

   “Would you like to see them?” Bellatrix carried on. “Shall we peek in the zoo?”

   Draco was sure he did not want to see anything that made Bellatrix excited or happy, but she danced ahead of him and threw open a pair of double doors that Draco recognised from his awkward position as leading into the ballroom, which definitely should have been situated on the ground floor. As soon as her hands released the door knobs, Bellatrix shot a spell at Draco’s feet that pulled him in front of the entranceway and deposited him to sit clumsily on the floor. Draco looked inside the room confused.

   “It’s empty,” he said, which was true. It was dark like the rest of the house, and there was clearly no one inside. But Bellatrix grabbed his t-shirt, and practically threw him over the threshold.

   It was like plunging under water. Suddenly, Draco’s whole perspective was accosted with light, movement and sound. He was now confronted with a hectic scene, unbearably jarring after so long in the dark and quiet. All the torches were lit and the chandeliers dripped with hot wax from the hundreds of flickering flames. Moving people filled every inch of the floor, and as Draco’s head jerked from left to right he could have sworn that the walls were stretching away from him, enlarging the room. What sounded like an entire orchestra was swirling through the air with a dramatic, fast paced dance in three-time, and all the people he could see were twirling from the left to the right in old fashioned dresses and sleek looking tailcoats.

   But that was just as first glance. Because, Draco realised, not everyone was dancing, and not everyone looked like they had stepped out of the eighteenth century. The pairs currently waltzing past could be split into two groups; one was in the traditional side of the couple, either male or female, that was in control of the dance, young, beautiful, dressed in splendid gowns with elaborate hair and rouge on their cheeks, or black tailcoats, high boots and cravats. These were the smiling ones, the ones that belonged in the lavish setting.

   And then there were their captives.

   Each dancer had a partner that could have been from any time in any continent throughout the world. An African teenage boy, an elderly Asian women, peasants and noblemen, a girl in a bright sixties miniskirt and beehive hair, and man covered in tattoos and only a loincloth to cover his modesty. Some weren’t even human Draco realised as a goblin went flying past, practically hanging from his partner’s neck. But as different as they all looked, they all had one thing in common. They were all fighting tooth and nail trying to break free of the hold their smiling, twirling partners had on them.

   Draco felt his heartbeat increase watching the men, women and others struggling, kicking, thrashing, even spitting in their vain attempts to escape. But nothing they did slowed the endless slipstream of dance spinning around the room, couples moving in and around each other like water flowing through a river.

   “What – what is this?” breathed Draco, more to himself than Bellatrix loitering and giggling behind him. The music shifted into a different piece, but the dancers did not even pause in their determination to haul their miss-matched partners around the grossly enlarged ballroom.

   “You!” a woman’s voice rang out over the dim of loud music and voices crying out to be released. Draco’s head snapped in confusion from his awkward position on the floor. Was someone talking to him? The prisoners that had passed him so far had seemed completely oblivious to him sitting by the door. But within a moment, a tall, elegant lady span into his sightline several feet to his left. She wore a rich purple satin dress with an impressive bustle, every inch detailed, embroidered and ruffled. Her gloves were the same dark purple, as well as her huge hat covered in feathers. Draco met her eyes and blinked.

   “You!” she cried again in hope and shock, shaking her dishevelled blonde ringlets from her face. “You’re Seamus’ boy! You don’t let them get away with this!” she hailed in a precise English accent. She was already being pulled past him by her handsome, oblivious partner, and she kicked out from under her many, many skirts to connect a purple leather hobnailed boot viciously with his shin to no effect. “You hear me,” she shouted over her shoulder to Draco, twisting back and forth to keep him in sight.   “You can’t let them do this, you stop them boy! You STOP them!”

 

***

 

   Not only was Ron feeling abandoned, confused and like he was going to pass out at any second, he was also beginning to think he was lost.

   And scared.

   He was trying to run through Salam Academy of Magic as fast as possible, but the whole place was engulfed in chaos. When Abbey and the others had left him he reckoned he was in their equivalent of dormitories, and there were lots of smaller building like bungalows that he could dart around, giving him cover as he dashed in the direction he felt they had left the car.

   But the night was full of screams and magic, spells lighting up the air in a rainbow of dazzling colours like the Northern Lights. It would have been beautiful if Ron hadn’t known what it meant.

   It was like the Death Eaters had declared war on the whole school looking for him and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Ron felt a rush of guilt and fury; they didn’t even know they were looking for wrong thing, but then if Ron hadn’t come to this reality in the first place, there would be no bit of You-Know-Who’s soul and none of these children would be under attack.

   And Chris wouldn’t be dead.

   He screwed up if face and sagged into the wooden wall of the dorm he was currently making his way around. He hadn’t even been able to draw a proper breath since Chris had been murdered by Bellatrix, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten. He just didn’t have the capacity to process the horror of it all yet.

   Several students went sprinting across the end of the ally running alongside the house, and Ron shrunk into the shadows as best he could. He couldn’t tell who was friend or foe, so he decided to just try and avoid everyone until he got to the car.

   But then what, what was he hoping to do? He had no magic fire or poison, he didn’t know how he could possibly destroy the bit of You-Know-Who. He rubbed his eyes again and forced himself to move. He could deal with that problem when (or if) he made it out of the school.

   He edged towards the broader pathway, his feet squishing in the muddy grass. He was just about to round the corner when he heard something thud very loudly on the other side, and he froze.

   “Where’s the boy!” snarled a husky voice. And Ron’s heart leapt into his mouth. “The red head, from England?”

   “I don’t-I don’t know!” stammered a desperate voice. “I swear, I saw him hours ago!”

   “Who was he with!” the older voice shouted, and Ron heard the thump again. “Where was he going!”

   “I don’t know I swear,” second voice, a boy, bleated again.

   There was a pause that made Ron’s stomach contract, and suddenly the boy tried to yell out “No!” but he was cut off before he could even finish the word.

   _“Crucio!”_ cried the husky man, and the boy screamed.

   Before he even knew what he was doing, Ron dove from around the corner of the student accommodation, his wand raised.

   _“Stupefy!”_ he hollered, blasting the Death Eater into the air with a jet of red light that sent him crashing into the gravel of the pathway.

   After taking a moment to assure himself the man was unconscious, Ron turned back to the student, and was surprised to see he recognised him. “You alright mate?” he said wearily, offering out his hand. “It’s Bobby, right?”

   Bobby, the boy that had threatened Abbey on the staircase, took Ron’s hand and nodded. “Mayhew,” he said as he stood. “Bobby Mayhew. Man you saved my life.”

   Ron glanced over his shoulder to make sure the Death Eater was still sprawled out of the floor. He shrugged. “You didn’t tell him where you saw me, or about Abbey.”

   “I ain’t telling any scum like that nothing,” he growled, spitting at the prone figure then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, not that it made much difference in this rain. “Why they after you?” asked the larger boy, punching his arm in what Ron guessed was a friendly way. “Must mean you did something good.”

   Ron bit his lip and tried not to show his distress. “It’s complicated,” he said. “I need to get to the front entrance, you couldn’t point me in the right direction could you?”

   Bobby raised his eyebrows. “Making a run for it?” he asked.

   Ron felt like he’d been smacked in the face.

   “No!” he spluttered. “I need something, something they want and I have to stop them! It’s in the car, I would never just abandon-”

   “Whoa, hey,” said Bobby, throwing his hands up. “No sweat, I actually think it’d be smart to run. Front gate is that way.”

   He pointed the opposite way to which Ron had been moving, and he cursed inwardly. He made to step forward, then he turned back to Bobby. “But you should hide,” he said. “You should get out if you can, find some broomsticks, run for it.”

   Bobby opened his mouth, but an explosion rocked both the boys where they stood, and Ron spun around. One of the bigger structures across the way, an astronomy tower by the looks of it, was going up in flames. Hoards of people were running and screaming, and before their eyes the building began to crumble, almost half of the side nearest them sliding down into a mass of rubble, smoke and magic.

   “Go!” shouted Bobby, pushing Ron in the direction he’d said the front gate lay, before breaking into a sprint towards the carnage left by the tower.

Ron stumbled for a second, watching the boy that had seemed like a bully running to help his fellow students, until he came to his senses and started running himself.

   He hoped there hadn’t been anyone in that tower, he hoped Bobby wouldn’t get into any more danger by charging head first into it, but he sensed that was a hope too far. But whilst wishful thinking was propelling him forward through the student bungalows again, he really did hope that Abbey, A.J and the other cheerleaders had made it too their destination safely.

   Even if she had hurt him through and through by not staying with him to find the baseball cap.

   Had what they’d been through together in the tunnels meant nothing? Heck, A.J. had been trying harder to stay with him and he’d been grievously injured. Maybe she was mad at him for bringing this onslaught to her school, her friends, her teachers. Maybe she blamed him for Chris?

   Ron was dreading seeing Chris’ car, knowing that the last time he had been there it had been with its rightful owner. Abbey and A.J. were right to hate him, he should never have let defenceless Muggles into the situation, he’d been selfish and scared. But if he could help Harry now, if he could do what Seamus said, maybe it would make it worthwhile?

   The heaviness of his heart made that seem unlikely.

   Abruptly, Ron reached the edge of the houses and found himself by a little shop that had sweets and magazines in, like a pop-up stall at a funfair, but was at present abandoned looking. The door was hanging open, banging back and forth in the wind and the rain, so he darted towards it and carefully eased in, checking there was no one around before crouching behind the small counter. He closed his eyes and let his heart hammer for just a moment as he sheltered from the rain. His temperature was sky high and his nausea kept sweeping over him in waves.

   Feeling a bit wrong he grabbed a bottle of water from the other side of the stall and twisted the cap off with a satisfying snap. He glugged the contents down all in one, and after a few deep breaths felt a little better. At least it had got rid of the taste of sick.

   He dropped the empty bottle on the floor where it bounced and rolled, then peered out into the darkness. Nothing seemed to be moving other than the elements, so he dashed back outside.

   Bobby had pointed him this way, and he knew the car was parked away from the school compound as they’d had to walk along quite a long path from the road, but still he shivered with apprehension at the prospect of leaving the cover of the building complex.

   But every second he wasted put Harry in more danger, so he swallowed his fear and ran out onto the grass, keeping his eyes alert for anyone following him.

   The sounds of the skirmish faded, and after a few minutes all he could hear were his feet squelching on the mud and his heavy breathing. He could hardly make anything out at all in the darkness and rain, so he just tried to keep the school at his back. There was nothing to warn him if the doors were approaching, until his feet suddenly hit gravel and startled him so much he almost slipped over. Unless there was another one running close to it, this had to be the pathway they had travelled up.

   Ron looked back over his shoulder and could see the outline of Salem Academy against a haze of magical spells and flames. He could no longer hear the screams, but they were fresh in his mind and he shuddered as he stood in the rain.

   So what if he found the hat, what was he going to do with it? And if he did manage to find some poison or something to destroy it, that wouldn’t help the students that were under attack from You-Know-Who’s people. They needed proper reinforcements, Aurors from the Ministry or whatever the American equivalent was. Maybe someone at the school had already contacted them, maybe they were already on the grounds, stopping Crabapple and her people from hurting anyone else?

   He had to hope that was the case, because right now he couldn’t do anything else. He had to keep going. He closed his hand around the lump in his pocket where the Philosopher’s Stone rested, feeling it would maybe bring him luck, and set off at a run down the gravel path.

   Finally, in the weak moonlight, the giant double doors that signified the entrance to the grounds of the academy loomed, and Ron felt a spurt of energy race through his legs. Luckily, unlike when the boys had tried to enter, the door began to creak open as soon as he got within ten feet of them. As he approached he could see through the invisible barriers either side that he was alone, and no further Death Eaters were lurking about trying to get in. Or at least if they were, they were hidden in the trees and not on the road. Ron swallowed and crossed his fingers that there truly wasn’t anybody waiting to ambush him.

   The doors were open a few feet by the time he arrived, so he was able to power through them without pause. And there it stood, gleaming in the rain. Chris’ car.

   Ron didn’t know much at all about Muggle vehicles, but this really was a beauty, with smooth lines and years of love poured into it. He slowed his run and walked up to it in trepidation, feeling like it was looking at him accusingly.

   “I’m sorry,” Ron said out loud, his voice sounding strange in the relative silence. “I know he really liked you.” He touched the metal, which was oddly still warm from the day’s heat despite the pounding rain. And there, in the back seat, was the red peeked cap. Ron exhaled in relief, and pulled at the door handle.

   It was locked.

   “No,” uttered Ron, and yanked the latch again. “No, no, NO!” He pulled and pulled, then kicked the metal alloy of the wheel and cried out to the night sky. The tears came unbidden, furious and desperate. “Let me in!” he yelled, pulling at the door again that remained stubbornly closed.

   He rested his palms on the roof and bowed his head, breathing in and out and letting the rain drum on his head as he realised how stupid he was being. He straightened and pulled Bill’s wand out again, pointing it calmly and the handle.

   _“Alohomora,”_ he whispered, and all the latches popped open. He would have been cross with himself for being such an idiot if he wasn’t so thankful. In a flash he seized the door and snatched it open, reaching into the dry interior and plucking the innocent looking hat from the leather. He stood up in the rain and rubbed the material between his fingers. He could _feel_ it, the evil. He remembered his relief at taking it off before, but he’d put that down to the heat and the long journey. Now he was holding it again though, it was like a heavy weight was pulling on his heart, clouding his vision and leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

   “Not very brave,” came a voice that made him spin around in fright. “Running away like that?”

   Crabapple stood by the gates, soaked through but not exactly battle worn like Ron would have hoped, her wand levelled at his chest.

   “What did you do to Rodriguez?” shouted Ron, clutching the hat and aiming his wand at her. Everything he’d ever learnt in Defence Against the Dark Arts seemed to have evaporated from his brain, but he was determined not to go down without a fight.

   “I’d be a little more concerned about yourself right now, son,” said the Headmistress with a look of concern. “Why don’t you give me the stone and save yourself a lot of trouble?”

   “Fine,” Ron spat, shoving his hand in his pocket and retrieving the Philosopher’s Stone. “Take it, I don’t care!” He threw it at her feet.

   She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, then bent down to pick up the little red stone. As quick as he could, Ron chucked the hat through the still open door of the car, hiding it from her sight. She still didn’t realise she had the wrong artefact.  

   But when she straightened up again she wore a worrying look on her face. “You have no regard for this, do you?” she said.

   Ron swallowed, his heart racing. Please don’t kill me, he thought, not before I can get the hat away. Harry needs me. “I don’t want to die for it,” he countered, “if that’s what you mean.”

   Crabapple took a step forwards, the stone vanished in her robes. “What are you hiding?” she asked softly.

   “Nothing,” said Ron a little too quickly, moving back against the car. He could hear the rain hitting on the leather seats.

   _“Imperio!”_ she cried, flicking her wand in the blink of an eye, and suddenly Ron felt wonderfully calm and serine, like he hadn’t a care in the world. “Mr Weasley,” said Crabapple sweetly. “You look troubled. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

   “I have to help my best friend,” said Ron, feeling better for sharing his worries. “He has to fight You-Know-Who, and unless I break the hat, he won’t stand a chance.”

   Crabapple looked concerned. “That doesn’t make any sense hun,” she said. “My master isn’t here, nobody’s fighting him.”

   Ron shook his head, and smiled. It was all very complicated after all. “No, not your You-Know-Who, _mine,_ from my world. He was sort of dead, like a ghost, and when I came here I dragged him into Limbo and a bit of his soul’s in my hat. Now Harry’s in Limbo, fighting him to stop him taking over the whole universe, and unless I kill the soul, in the hat, You-Know-Who will win.”

   Crabapple’s forehead creased in concentration. “You’ve got a bit…of his soul, in a hat?”

   “Yeah,” said Ron, nodding. “Weird isn’t it? It was in Harry before that, cuz he killed my You-Know-Who. Or Draco’s actually…” Ron trailed off, feeling like he’d got his wires crossed. He shrugged. “In any case, I need to mangle the hat, so Harry can win. The soul’s called a Hortricks or something.”

   Crabapple smoothed out her expression. “Horcrux,” she said.

   Ron snapped his fingers, flicking rainwater. “That’s it.”

   Crabapple smiled, like she understood. “So that’s what the prophecy’s really about?”

   “Yes,” said Ron earnestly. “I can see how you’d mistake it for the Philosopher’s Stone though, and I’m sure that’ll still be really useful for you.”

   Crabapple nodded and smiled kindly. “And where’s the hat now?”

   Ron opened his mouth, but something screamed at him. _Don’t give it to her!_ bellowed the voice. It almost sounded like himself. “It’s um,” he said, trying to remember. Why didn’t he know where the hat was, he was sure he did a minute ago? He shook his head.

   “Is it at your home?” asked Crabapple. “Where you swapped bodies, is that where you were driving back to?”

   “No,” said Ron. That definitely wasn’t right. “It’s not there, it’s nearby...I think.” He rubbed his head. Why couldn’t he tell the Headmistress where it was, she was trying to help him?

   _No she’s not!_ the voice cried, and Ron felt himself stagger. _She wants to hurt you, to hurt Harry!_

   “Why do you want the hat?” Ron asked, but it was hard to make the words come out.

   “To protect it of course,” she replied. “It’s a very dangerous thing for you to have, I’ll help you look after it.”

   That sounded nice to Ron, but the voice piped up again. _It doesn’t need protecting,_ it hissed in fury. _It needs destroying. Don’t do it!_

   Ron was panting with the effort of keeping his thoughts straight in his already throbbing brain. He knew that giving Crabapple the hat was the right thing to do, so why wasn’t he doing it?

   “Ron,” she said, a little sterner. “We haven’t got time for this, do you have the Horcrux or not?”

   Yes, he thought. “No,” came out of his mouth.

   Crabapple’s expression suddenly changed to fury. _“Crucio!”_ she snarled, and the fog cleared from Ron’s mind, wiped away in an instant by blinding pain. “Give me the Horcrux!” she cried, advancing from the doors to the school. “Tell me where it is!”

   Despite the hangover from the pain, Ron was suddenly himself again, free from her Imperius Curse. “No chance,” he breathed as the curse faded, and blasted her with a spell as fast as he could. She managed to fling herself out of its way, but that gave him the split second he needed to throw himself in the backseat of the car, slamming the door, throwing up a protection spell as he fell.

   Crabapple shook the whole vehicle with a curse, but Ron’s _Protego_ spell held. He threw up another one just in case, then scrambled into the front seat, his fingers pulling the seatbelt across his body. He only paused for a moment in horror as he realised the keys were still in Chris’ pocket, before remembering what his brothers had taught him and jammed his wand into the ignition.

   _“Ingnitious!”_ he cried, sparking life into the car.

   Crabapple was enraged, hurtling spell after spell at his fading Protego charm. He stamped on the clutch as the windows cracked and tugged the gear box into first, the wheels spinning before he released the brake and the car lurched forward.

   He couldn’t find the lights or the windscreen wipers as he pushed into second, then third gear, so gripped on to the steering wheel for dear life, swerving near blind along the tarmac. He felt a blast hit him from behind and cried out in shock. Another hit, the car skidded violently, and he had to throw his whole body weight into keeping control of the wheel.

   Lights sparked up ahead as he righted himself, and in confusion, his foot eased off the pedal.

   It was too late when he realised it was another spell, this time coming from in front.

   The ground exploded and the car tipped. It was like everything started moving in slow motion as Ron became weightless, the right hand side of the car lifting from the road. His back jolted and he bit his tongue, the sound of the explosion ringing in his ears as the car upended and crashed on its roof on the grassy verge of the road, rolling side over side, the seatbelt digging into his body as it hugged him painfully to the seat every time gravity took hold.

   Suddenly the car slammed to a halt, upside down with Ron dangling from the belt, blood in his mouth, his head pounding like someone had taken to it with a beater’s club. He grunted and fumbled with the clasp, his fingers not really doing what he told them.

   She’s coming, he thought to himself through the confusion. She’ll be outside any minute, get out.

   His thumb jabbed again and again, until finally hitting true and punching the button, snapping the seatbelt free. He crumpled down onto the roof with a cry, and tried to right himself, but his legs were tangled under the dashboard and between the gearstick. He pulled and heaved, aiming to drag himself out of the shattered window. Broken glass was scattered everywhere, and his hands cut to ribbons in less than a minute.

   “Argh!” he hollered as he reached the window frame and threw his torso back into the rain, every muscle protesting. He could hear shouts as he rolled out of the car, but he couldn’t tell who it was, or how far away they were.

   The car had rolled off of the grass, down the small verge and made it past a couple of lines of trees before it had crunched to a halt. Ron took a quick look around, then ducked back down to fish the red cap out from the backseat and shoved it into his back pocket. Then, wand gripped tight, he skirted around the car, heading into the tree line. _“Episkey,”_ he muttered, healing his hands as he went.

   He hadn’t made it even five feet before a spell shot overhead, and he darted down beside the car for shelter. He gasped for breath, his heart hammering. “He’s over there!” a man’s voice cried on the American accent Ron was used to by now. “I can see the car!”

   _“Protego Totalum,”_ he cried, aiming at the general area of the car wreck. _“Protego Horribilis.”_ He didn’t know how much good the protection spells would do, but it was better than nothing. He squinted into the woods, desperate to run into their cover, but the crowing voice was close and would undoubtedly blast him again if he tried to move. He would just have to pray the car protected him a little longer.

   A little longer for what? He had nothing to destroy the Horcrux with.

   More voices were shouting, and as Ron peered through the shattered windows and crumpled frame of the car, he could see feet and wand light congregating on the tarmac and grass. He wasn’t sure what they were waiting for, but he was pretty sure they weren’t friendly.

   He got his answer as the headmistress arrived, marching impatiently between the Death Eaters to the front of the group.

   “Ronald!” she bellowed. “It’s over, no one has to die here today, just give us the Horcrux!”

   Ron could taste the bile in his throat. “Harry will die,” he called back, feeling pitiful as he did. “Don’t you see, no one wins if I let you take it, You-Know-Who will ruin the whole universe.”

   “He will spare us,” Crabapple preached. “His most loyal and valuable servants.”

   “And kill all the good people,” breathed Ron, screwing up his courage and energy, then threw out an explosion that made the Death Eaters jump and shout out. Crabapple was knocked of her feet, and Ron cursed himself for not being slightly better with his aim.

   Someone helped her to her feet, but she was so angry she pushed them away as soon as she was upright. “Young man,” she said, storming up to the car as far as she could against the shields Ron had erected. “This is your last chance, after that I will not be responsible for you safety. You either hand over the Horcrux, or we come and take it.”

   Ron dug his fingernails into his palms, fear shaking him down to his core. He wanted to give it to her, he wanted nothing more than to wake up at home with his family, his real family, or in the Gryffindor common room. But he was here, and every time he thought of those comforting scenes, Harry’s face was right there in front of him.

   If he did nothing now, if he gave up, then he was all but killing his best friend himself.

   He took a deep breath, inhaling the cold rain drops. “Then come and kill me,” he rasped.

   The tree next to him burst into flames. Ron felt like he jumped a foot in the air, even though he had literally just told the Death Eaters to attack. But as he jerked around, he realised it wasn’t any of them that had done the firing. They were equally recoiling in shock and horror, and another fireball came tearing through the air.   Ron’s mouth fell open as he cowered by the car, the fire fighting the lashing rain to stay alive.

   “What-” uttered Crabapple.

   “Hey!” yelled a new voice, and Ron went against his better judgement to peek around the car.

   Abigail Preston was stood on the road, the wind and rain plastering her blonde hair to her forehead. Around her, sprinting to her side with their wands raised, were at least two dozen other cheerleaders and older students, standing by her to face the mob of Death Eaters. And in her hands, sizzling against the downpour, was a two foot long tomahawk, dangling with beads and feathers, and a blade made of raging fire.

   “Y’all in _big_ trouble,” yelled the cheerleader, crazy alight in her eyes. “Ya _hear me!”_

 

***

 

   Harry trudged back through the woods, following Bellatrix Lestrange as his anger grew and curled around his guts like smoke from a campfire. The adrenaline from the chase and fight was cooling in his blood and questions were filling up his whirring mind.

   Why hadn’t Bellatrix killed him? And why was she bringing him _to_ Voldemort? Did they not know that only Harry had the power to destroy him, out of every other being in Limbo? Well, potential power he reminded himself, his guts knotting. Only if the Horcrux was destroyed would he have that advantage, and he had no idea if that might have happened or not. How would he know, would he feel different perhaps? He hoped so, but something told him he wouldn’t be that fortunate.

   So why not just kill him, what possible use could Voldemort have for him? Harry inhaled slowly, the snow touching his skin and hair as the troupe stepped over a little babbling brook, and tried not to imagine the most obvious reason.

The Dark Lord want to torture him. For fun.

   Or maybe it was all part of his demented plan to pull Limbo apart? Maybe he wanted to force Harry to help him or something, which, again, he couldn’t imagine wouldn’t involve significant and painful coercion.

   Harry set his jaw as they pushed through the pines, dislodging settled snow. So be it. He was not going to help in the destruction of countless trillions of innocent people, his life was microscopic in comparison.

   “Keep moving,” snapped Bellatrix unnecessarily. Harry had remained two steps behind her ever since he had been taken captive, but if it made her feel better to snap at him then let her. He was saving his energy for her master.

   “How much further?” the big butcher man barked down the line to his boss, swiping angrily and unnecessarily at the branches.

   “Feeling tired Sweeny?” replied Bellatrix, looking over her shoulder to show them all her manic grin. Half her face was burnt up, just like portions of her clothes and skin. Harry wasn’t sure how she was still holding herself together, let alone able to run and fight, but this was Limbo and it wasn’t worth questioning it.   But that did mean she was the Bellatrix he had accidently lit on fire in the dungeons of Germany, and that meant her master would in theory be from the same universe. The one Harry was supposed to destroy.

   The way his luck was going, he was sort of able to count that as good fortune.

   Through the trees and night time gloom, lights were dancing up ahead, getting larger and larger. Gradually, Malfoy Manor became visible once again, and Harry could see torches had been erected around the graveyard filled with headstones of all the family and friends he had lost.

   Bellatrix picked up her pace in what Harry assumed was anticipation, and he steeled himself for what was coming next. As they broke through the tree line and entered the cemetery again, he glanced down only long enough to establish that all the stones still bore the same half a dozen names, over and over, in different fonts and styles, before banishing them from his thoughts. They weren’t real, there was no place like this that existed in his world, or any world he was pretty confident. This was his deepest fears being waved around in front of his face in an attempt to spook him. It had worked before, but now they seemed childish and small. He had killed none of these people. That blood dripped from the hands of the monster he was now approaching.

   “Harry Potter,” said Voldemort warmly, sweeping his robed arms out as if to embrace Harry like a son. Bellatrix scampered to his side, and the rest of the Rhansyk fanned out, forcing Harry to move in front of Voldemort and take in his deathly white snake face.

   Harry ground his teeth. “Voldemort,” he said with a curt nod, causing the Dark Lord’s mouth to twitch a smile. Bellatrix glowered at his disrespect, and the other Rhansyk either shifted uncomfortably or looked bored.

   Voldemort laced his white hands together behind his back. The blood on them may have been figurative, but Harry’s fury didn’t lessen.

   “What do you want?” he demanded, causing Bellatrix to bristle even more. Harry got a macabre sense of pleasure from that. “If you’re going to kill me, just get on with it.”

   This made the Rhansyk chuckle and smirk, but Harry ignored them. His senses were heightened in a few specific areas, namely at his wand tucked into Bellatrix’s belt, and the way Voldemort’s eyes were dancing in the torchlight. He was excited about something.

   “Your death is not at hand,” said Voldemort smoothly. “Though I am enjoying your valour.” His eyes narrowed as he looked Harry over. “It looks like you’ve sustained some injuries?” he asked.

   Harry couldn’t help but be a little thrown by this. He swallowed and tried not to let it show, saying nothing. Why would he care what hurts Harry had? Voldemort didn’t seem to need confirmation though.

   “That will need attending to,” he said, inclining his head towards Bellatrix, who nodded curtly, not taking her eyes off Harry.

   A boy of Harry’s age came running up to the crowd. It disturbed Harry to think of a Rhansyk being that young, but this one could only have been seventeen or eighteen. He was dressed in sailor’s whites complete with trimmed hat, but the clothes weren’t the only things melded into his stitched up skin. Seaweed and coral emerged and protruded sickeningly, glistening in the moon and torchlight that also made his red eyes glow like coals.

   “Master!” he gasped, his breath light with excitement. “It’s all ready, all the ingredients.”

   Bellatrix looked like she’d just been told she’d been given a puppy for her birthday. To torture. She jumped to her tiptoes and clasped her charred hands together.

   “Gebhard,” said Voldemort, and a bored looking man in a pinstripe suit looked up from flicking through a notebook welded into his palm. “You will assist Bellatrix in her preparations.”

   Gebhard showed no emotion or reaction other than to flip his notebook shut and saunter off in the direction the sailor boy had run from, parallel to the house and away from the gravelled path that Harry had walked up with Draco.

   Harry was feeling a rising frustration at his complete ignorance, it was giving him a too big a disadvantage. He carefully pulled at the ropes around his wrists as he watched Bellatrix skip off with his wand, then returned his focus to Voldemort. “What do you want from me?” he tried asking again. “If you’re not going to kill me?”

   “Why to go on a marvellous adventure,” replied Voldemort with a curving smile that did not reach his eyes. “You and My Malfoy have opened up a world of possibilities for us. Well,” he said, casting his eyes round his crowd of followers with a knowing smirk. _“Worlds,_ actually.”

   Harry gritted his teeth as they tittered appreciatively. He pulled at his ropes again. “I’m not going to help you,” he said, his eyes boring into Voldemort’s. “So whatever you’ve got in mind you can just forget about it.”

   “Yes of course,” said Voldemort placatingly.

   Harry decided to take his chances, damn the consequences, and suddenly bolted. The big butcher man Bellatrix had called Sweeny tackled him before he could make it three paces though, and they crashed to the ground, threatening to pop Harry’s shoulder out afresh.

   He cried out, but not half as much as the next moment when Voldemort aimed his wand between nimble fingers, and cast the Crucio curse.

   “Do behave,” he drawled as Sweeny hefted himself up, leaving Harry to awkwardly push himself into a sitting position, shuddering for breath.

   “I’m not doing anything you tell me,” he said, spitting out blood where he had bit his lip. “I won’t help you destroy Limbo, don’t you understand you’ll be pulling apart all the other universes too?” He flipped around to his knees and staggered back to his feet, the Rhansyk closing around him, keeping him in place. “Don’t you see what you’re doing!”

   Voldemort laughed, whole-heartedly. “How interesting,” he said, looking at Harry curiously.

“I mean it,” he snapped back. “You’ll just have to kill me first.” Unless I can kill you, he thought determinedly. Maybe Alex or Seamus would know, be able to get him a message to let him know the Horcrux had been destroyed. But he needed to free his hands first to get his wand back, to gain some kind of advantage over his captors.

   “Nobody is dying today,” said Voldemort, turning his back to Harry and strolling back up through the headstones a few feet. “I actually believe that once you see, you will rather come to enjoy what lies ahead.” He looked over his shoulder and smiled coyly. “I know I will.”

   Harry’s eyes darted fervently round, trying to see anything useful. The torches perhaps, he had found himself nearer one. They were five feet or so high and probably had a sharp stake under the ground they’d been driven through. That with the fire on the other end might give him a reasonable weapon. Other than that, all he could see was grass, headstones and fog.

   Some of the Rhansyk were murmuring amongst themselves and he stole a glance up at Malfoy Manor. He could have sworn he saw a figure moving at one of the higher windows, but it was dark and gone in a second before if he could tell anything about the person, or even if they’d really been there.

   _“Incarcerous,”_ came Voldemort’s voice loud and clear, and in a flash Harry was slammed into one of the tombstones that bore his mother’s name, ropes flying through the air, binding him to the headstone, tying his legs together, even wrapping around his head and jamming between his teeth.

   He wretched at his binds, shouting as best he could from behind the gag, thrashing out with his limbs despite the pain in his shoulder, arm and back from the dislocation. “There there,” said Voldemort soothingly. “No need to fuss, once the ritual is complete, you will understand everything, there will be no need for doubt or fear.”

   Harry disagreed, and made his feelings known with a particularly vicious string of profanities from underneath the rope. It scraped his tongue just like the rope around his wrists had chaffed them to bleeding, but as Bellatrix and Gebhard approached he fought even harder, his own pain irrelevant compared with the panic of what was about to happen.

   Was this it, was this how they unravelled Limbo?

   Bellatrix was walking carefully, and in her hands was held up a steaming silver goblet, big enough that it rested fully in both her palms. Was it a potion? Were they going to drink from it, throw it at him? Harry couldn’t even begin to fathom, but he strained against the grave he was secured against again, much to the delight of the jeering Rhansyk.

   When Alex has said the Voldemorts were bent on destroying Limbo, Harry had imagined a great battlefield, and from what he’d glimpsed of the campsite he guessed that’s what everyone else had thought as well. Was that all just a distraction? It was quite clear he was about to witness some sort of ritual, was he about to be sacrificed?

   The snow-damp mud under his trainers was churning with the effort his feet were putting into trying to budge even an inch, but the ropes were so tight he was going nowhere. He cried out uselessly again as Bellatrix dropped to one knee, holding the goblet up in front of Voldemort. The Rhansyk had formed a circle, and Harry couldn’t help but be reminded of another night in a graveyard full of Death Eaters, and it was no surprise to him that it was Cedric Diggory’s grave that fell in his line of sight as he battled against his ropes.

   Voldemort had begun chanting in a strange language, perhaps Latin, and Harry shivered as the wind picked up, sweeping through the cemetery and making the torch flames dance.

   This was it, he had no hope, nothing left to fight back with or try and escape. A blue aura was rising from the goblet, mixing with the steam, and the look on Bellatrix’s face told Harry the ritual was almost complete. Voldemort’s unwavering chanting never rose than more than a rasp, so Harry couldn’t catch any of the words fully, but his fervour was increasing and the Rhansyk were fidgeting in anticipation.

   Harry stilled himself, his nerves tingling in preparation for the end. He tried to clear his raging mind, think of the important things in his life. Saving his Godfather Sirius, being with Ron and Hermione, getting the chance to meet Draco and Sarah, to see them again. His life in the magical world, no matter how turbulent, all the things he had held dear like discovering his true heritage, the legacy of his parents, attending Hogwarts where he belonged.  

   If he died now, would all of that vanish, from every universe that ever was? Or would Draco be able to stop both the Voldemorts? How much had his capture and defeat lead directly to the obliteration of every life in every countless universe?

   He glanced towards the house, his last remaining hope pinned on Draco’s success, and an icy tear escaped down his cheek.

   Voldemort stepped forward unnaturally fast but without spilling a drop from the smoking goblet. The blue aura was swirling and glowing amidst the steam wafting from the liquid, and now it lingered between Harry and the Dark Lord. What remained of Tom Riddle smiled and inhaled deeply, before blowing the blue haze in Harry’s face.

   He tried not to breath in the fumes, but it sped down his nose, in the corners of his mouth, stung his eyes. Harry coughed as the sweet, spicy taste hit the back of his throat, and felt his head swim. Voldemort was still chanting in the rolling, foreign language, none of the words making any sense despite now being able to hear them clearly, and Harry was speedily losing his grasp on reality.

   He felt a protest vibrate along his gullet, but the rope was still wedged between his jaw. His energy was rapidly dwindling but he fought with everything he had to stay awake.

   It was no good though. The last thing he saw before the darkness eventually took him was Voldemort’s smiling, triumphant face.

 

***

 

   Sarah thought she might have been used to the rain by now. She wasn’t.

   She was limping down the winding private drive that lead away from her parents’ house and back into the village, hugging herself and trying to breath deep enough to steady her heart rate down to a more normal rate. It was dark in the weak moonlight and the trees rustled disconcertingly in the wind and rain, making her start every few seconds thinking she was being followed.

   But no one was following her, or if they were they were far enough behind that she would lose them soon enough, and eventually she began to calm.

   She had done it, she’d made it out with the necklace and (after checking with a sudden lurch of doubt) Hermione’s wand was still in her pocket. The zombie people hadn’t turned her into one of them, she was still in the game. Now she just had to try and find Terry and Hermione, and pray they could say the same.

   Where would they have gone though? She knew they had run down the opposite way from her in the ally, but after that they literally could have ended up anywhere. Should she aim for an area with lots of houses, or somewhere else with lots of businesses like the secondary school with the gym and the carwash over the road? Or maybe something in between, like the garden centre along the A road? How could she work out where Hermione and Terry would be when she didn’t know what the Death Eaters were up to or how they were casting the zombie spell?

   Why hadn’t they worked out a plan to meet up again before they’d split up?

   She wrapped her arms around herself even tighter and screwed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry. She was cold, tired, wet and scared, her adrenaline was spiked from so many attacks and she was desperately worried about her family and all the other people in the town. On top of that she was now in charge of an artefact that could possibly save or destroy the world, and her foot was really, really hurting.

   Just for a moment, Sarah Potter allowed herself to stop in the middle of the road, and cry.

   Sobs raked down her sides, and she gasped noisily in the rain, baying at the partially visible moon behind the clouds. Why her? Why did these terrible things keep happening to her? Hadn’t she done enough for the universe? Why was she now responsible for its salvation? It just didn’t seem fair, not one bit.

   After a few minutes, her choked sobs quietened into little sniffles, and she was able to inhale deeply and regain her composure. She felt better for finally letting go and breaking down, like she’d thrown a tantrum and despite it not changing anything, she felt better for channelling her energy outwards. She blew her nose on her sodden sleeve, then rubbed her stinging eyes with her fingers. Most of her makeup was probably long gone, but it still felt like there was grit in her lashes so she rubbed them furiously, aggravating the skin tender from her tears.

   Before she knew it one foot was stepping in front of the other again, and she was almost at the pub on the corner of her road and the main one it intersected with. She slunk in the shadows and watched a couple of lone zombies traipsing around the cricket pitch and in between the few houses next to the green. Which way should she head now? It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack where all the hay straws wanted to kill you.

   Deciding that Terry and Hermione had sort of been heading to town the direction she had last seen them going, Sarah decided she would head that way too. So she crept around the trees and followed the road leading right, sticking to the bushes on the curb side even though they offered little in the way of camouflage.

   Houses were scarce in this part of town, so there were far less zombies milling about. Besides, thought Sarah, shaking her head ruefully – they’re all at my house anyway.

   She still had to be vigilant, taking cover wherever she could in case one should sneak up on her or pop out unexpectedly. At one point a gaggle of cursed townsfolk stumbled out several feet in front of her, and she had to veer off the road and onto an adjacent field to duck amongst the sleeping cows. By the time she managed to navigate her way back onto the road, there were more houses building up and the zombie crowds were getting denser.

   Sarah clung to a ramshackled building nestled in the trees that probably used to house lawnmowers but was now only likely to house mice. Perhaps she should try and distract her would-be attackers with another levitation spell before they got a chance to see her? It would at least give her more freedom to move about, so making up her mind she pulled out her wand and decided to wiggle about the next likely looking object she found.

   For the first time in her life she was grateful to live in a town that had so many trees planted in it. The next time she wistfully dreamed of moving to London or Bristol, she would remind herself just how much she had hidden behind the leaves and branches of Godric’s Hollow, and be thankful.

   Just as she was eyeing up a couple of wheelie bins to whiz about in front of a nearby pocket of zombies, something caught her attention and forced her to look skyward in confusion.

   A volley of fireworks were exploding in the night, illuminating the clouds with showers of pinks, greens, reds and purples, peppering the night air with pops and bangs that tingled Sarah’s ears. The sight only lasted about ten seconds, but Sarah stood dumbstruck for at least another thirty.

   Who on Earth would let off fireworks in a time like this, when everyone was either a zombie, a Death Eater, or someone hiding from both? Who would want to bring attention to themselves like that? Had it been an accident?

   And then it hit her. “Terry,” she said out loud. Only he would be stupid enough to try and grab her attention like that, but it had worked. Sarah suddenly felt very alive, all her senses pricking. The sparks had definitely come for the direction of the town like she’d thought, slightly to the left. She tried to think what might be there, and where the fireworks may have come from, but it was nearly bonfire night, and loads of shops were selling them. So she decided not to over think it, and just head for where the rockets might have been lit.

   She wasted no time in animating her bins to lead these particular zombies away, then hobbled out into the road, running as fast as she could towards town. “I’m coming guys,” she muttered. “Hang on, I’m coming.”

   The zombies were slowing her down though. Stumbling and moping about in the streets as if they were waiting for some kind of celebrations to begin in the rain. She had to duck for cover every other minute, and even if she found a clear alley to run down every step was filled with trepidation that someone would obstruct both ends before she had a chance to get out.

   Her knowledge of the town’s geography was very good but it wasn’t all inclusive, and in the night time rain some streets and buildings were starting to blend together in a confusing miss-match. It was hard to keep in mind which direction the fireworks had come from, but Sarah used the moon when she could see it to try and keep herself going straight.

   She found herself by a petrol garage though that she hadn’t expected to be there, on a road that was turning out to be leading somewhere she didn’t know, and there were at least a dozen zombies bumping around by the abandoned cars and trudging through the flower beds of the homes either side of the pavements. Sarah lingered on the corner, weighing up her options before heading down the road, or back up the way she’d just come, when someone wailed horribly close to where she was standing.

   She whirled around to find two zombies tottering towards her, arms swiping the rain in search of her warmth. Sarah impressed herself by not screaming, just sucking down a lungful of air and darting out into the street, the decision apparently made for her.

   She jumped into a garden a few doors down that had some large, helpful shrubs growing around its edges and dropped into the mud, the Horcrux necklace swinging from her throat. She crawled on her belly into next door’s garden to find a golden Labrador cowering by a bird bath. He whimpered when he saw her, and Sarah quickly reached her hand up to stroke his wet fur. “It’s okay boy,” she whispered as the dog looked at her with wide black eyes. “Stay here okay – stay.” She moved away from the Lab, and he did as he was told and lay back down on the saturated grass, resting his chin on his paws to sadly watch her go out of the corner of his eye.

   Sarah peeked out to look at the street again, only to see it was much the same as before. The two zombies that had approached her on the corner were now mingling with the rest of the crowd, grousing in the rain and sparking blue whenever they came close to one another.

   She looked at the moon, half crescent behind the blustering clouds, and realised she was heading too far to the right, she needed to cross the road – wherever that might take her – and head more left if she was going to have any hope of discovering where the fireworks were set off. Would Terry even still be there though, and unless she saw some empty rockets how would she spot where the blast site had been?

   It was better than sitting on her thumbs though, she reasoned, ducking down as a nearby zombie turned in her direction. She crawled along the grass and hopped over into the next garden.

   Unfortunately, it wasn’t empty. Sarah started as she spotted a little girl zombie in a princess dress standing morosely near the front door of the house. It only took her a moment to realise that Sarah was still un-cursed, and stumble into the garden to try and touch her. Sarah was already long gone though, out into the street despite all the zombies loitering around.

   “Just keep running!” she gasped to herself as cries went up like alerts and the zombies bumbled around, sensing her presence. She tore across the road, darting between cars and heading for another petrol garage. There was an alley between the buildings behind it and a deserted looking supermarket, so she took her chances and pelted down it.

   She was so close to the end when the checkout girl appeared.

   Sarah felt like her heart stopped. The girl was tall and skinny with wispy blonde hair plastered to her head, and she was close enough Sarah could read her badge that said _‘Hi, my name is Ania’._ She stumbled into the wall and wailed, blue electricity flaring over her body, and Sarah almost tripped over her feet coming to a stop.

   Without pause she whipped around and sprinted back up the other way, but just as she reached halfway another body lurched into view. “No!” shrieked Sarah in horror, flattening herself against the wall, head snapping between the exits. There was only the checkout girl to her left, but to her right were now several zombies, shuffling excitedly towards her.

   There were no ladders in the alley to the roof, or doors inside the buildings, just bricks and cement. Sarah had no choice, so her ears ringing she turned again and bolted back towards Ania, wand in hand and ready.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ she bellowed, charging at the tall girl head on. The spell didn’t work exactly like it was supposed to, but at least she stumbled backwards a few steps towards the mouth of the alley. So Sarah levelled her wand at her again, forcing her back a few more paces and into the supermarket car park.  

   Bursting past her like the devil was on her heels, Sarah flew into the half empty car park and skirted around the nearest car. At a first glance there were only a couple more zombies waiting for her, but they were scattered across the lot and not an immediate danger. Unlike the alleyway, which was filling up with more and more zombies, bottle-necking them.

   The back of the car park was lined with a chain-link fence and there were wilted looking shrubs on the other side. To the left was another brick wall, probably the sides of some other shops, and to the right was a driveway leading back out onto the main road.

   Making a snap decision Sarah headed for the metal fence, running through puddles in between parked vehicles until she reached it and wrapped her fingers around the links. She looked up, assessing whether or not she should climb over or try and make a hole. The zombies could follow her through a hole though; from what she’d seen they would not be able to scale seven feet of fencing.

   She quickly looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was right behind her, pocketed her wand then jumped up to begin her ascent.   She made it easily enough to the top, but the end of the wires were sharp and she snagged her skin and her clothes as she traversed flipping over to the other side. Prickly tree branches scraped at her as well and the metal fence bowed shakily under her weight. Once she was over and the right way up, Sarah didn’t bother climbing back down, she just jumped.

   As soon as she hit the ground, she cursed loudly as her injured foot flared with pain, but after a moment or two she was able to shake it off and move away from the chain links. A couple of the zombies were almost close enough to touch it now, and she didn’t want any of them poking their fingers through and catching her. She pushed through the branches to find herself in another alleyway, this one running alongside the back of gardens. She’d sort of lost her bearings on the fireworks now, but instinct told her to head right so she didn’t argue.

   She managed to make it to the end of this one without bumping into anybody else, but when she emerged into another cul-de-sac she had no idea where she was and there was another dozen zombies congregating in the rain.

   Sarah balled up her fists in frustration. She was going around in circles, she needed to find Terry and Hermione before the odds finally went against her and a zombie managed to get their hands on her.

   She backed up against the wall and fished out her wand. She looked at it, the rain pounding down on them both. Surely there must be a spell she could use that would help her? Something to locate the others? Sarah bit her lip, then tried one she only half remembered learning.

   _“Point me,”_ she whispered, thinking of Terry and Hermione. The wand came to life, fist spinning to the right, then flicking around 180 degrees like a confused compass. Sarah watched it do this a couple more times, before sighing and giving up. She had obviously remembered it wrong.

   A zombified postman was straying a little too close to where she was standing, so Sarah decided to keep moving regardless of the ineffectual locator spell. She clung to the houses and made her way hurriedly out of the cul-de-sac, managing to mostly avoid any attention from the handful of zombies milling about.

   To her right down the adjoining street she could see the road the petrol garage and supermarket had been on. Thinking more of finding her bearings rather than avoiding zombies, she decided to risk going back on the main high street and keep heading towards where she thought the fireworks had come from. She darted through the rain and shadows, hobbling on her throbbing foot. A couple of zombies sensed her and cried out, but as there were only a few of them Sarah just planned to outrun them and hoped they forgot about her.

   This road had more cover on it with trees that bordered the pavement from fields on the other side, and the houses thinned out so there were less zombies hanging around. Sarah felt like maybe she knew where she was again, and if memory served there was a Muggle primary school up ahead. Should she head towards that, or back the other way towards the supermarket? She really couldn’t tell any more where the fireworks might have come from.

   It was as she was crouched by the trees considering this that the pair of hands grabbed her shoulders from behind.


	14. Lights (Part Three)

Chapter Seven - Part Three

 

   Draco had wanted to get to his feet, to run towards the woman in purple as she’d vanished back into the throng of dancers, but as he’d moved Bellatrix had yanked him back out of the room with a cackle, making the room suddenly become dark and lifeless again.

   “That’s enough time at the zoo,” she smirked, and slammed the doors shut, leaving them in the gloomy corridor once more.

   “Watchers,” said Draco with complete certainty, trying to stand. “They’re all Watchers.”

   “Clever boy.” Bellatrix shoved him back to the ground, levitating his body half-heartedly and dragging him along the corridor once again. “We can’t have them running around causing trouble,” she told him, as if this was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

   Draco’s mind was whirling as fast as the dancers had been. “Why,” he said, wincing as he bashed into the wall. “Why are they there like that, why not just lock them up or…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“Kill them?” supplied Bellatrix with a trill of a laugh. “Oh no,” she said. “We need them alive, otherwise we wouldn’t have stable links to their worlds. And they could escape a simple cell. We need them active and awake.”

   “Why,” demanded Draco, but Bellatrix just swiped at him with her boot.

   “Shut up,” was all she said.

   Draco knew he should be worried about himself and where she was talking him, but just how many Watchers did they have locked up the ballroom? Were Seamus and Alex already in there too? Why were they keeping them ‘active’, what was the plan?

   And why hadn’t Voldemort just killed them all already?

   Draco’s skin was prickling with fear as they ascended the staircase that lead to the West Wing of the Manor. There was more going on here than he and Harry had anticipated, he could feel it. He would have to work out what fast if he was to have any chance of stopping them.

   He looked at his wand and Godric’s sword, floating so close but still so far from his reach, and had to fight from falling completely into despair.

   They reached the top of the stairs with several more unnecessary pokes from Bellatrix’s boot, and marched onwards to the right. Despite the house being unnaturally arranged, Draco could still tell where they were heading, as if he was allergic to it. He felt no surprise, only more fear, as Bellatrix steered him towards then shoved him through the doors of his father’s forbidden study.

   Draco staggered into the room, the levitation spell now gone and trying to keep upright in spite of his bound wrists. The lamps were lit and the room looked exactly as it always did, like the precise moment he had vacated the house, down to every last book and scrap of parchment. Very different from the rest of the house with its missing portraits and extinguished lights. Draco felt his breathing heavy in his chest and sweat pricking on his forehead. His father wasn’t dead, not in his world. He was in Azkaban, so he couldn’t be here, he wasn’t going to pop out in Rhansyk form like Bellatrix had.

   Draco remembered though, as she strode into the room, that _she_ wasn’t from his world, she was from Harry’s. Did that mean another Lucius Malfoy was lurking in here, keeping it perfectly preserved, lit and decorated unlike the rest of the house?

   A soft laugh drifted from one of the only dark corners of the room, nestled between the large bay window that showed the snow still falling in the night, and the bookcase beside it lining the wall. A figure stepped from the shadows, his white fingers interlaced and contrasting against the blackness of the robes they protruded from.

   Even though Draco had been expecting him, he still tensed in shock. After all this time, he was here, right in front of him.

   But he was tied up and weaponless. The weight of it crushed down of Draco’s chest.

   “You seem concerned,” he said to Draco delicately, his red eyes still and calm in his white, skull-like face. He too was exactly the way Draco remembered him being in Courtroom Ten, before he’d killed Draco’s mother, before Draco had thrown himself in front of his wand and sent the dark wizard into oblivion.

   Draco summoned everything he had ever learnt from Severus about Occlumency and closed his mind to any probing from Voldemort. He would probably still be able to see some of what he was thinking, but he wasn’t going to just leave the door of his mind open for him to wonder in.

   “No actually,” he snapped, using nonchalance to aid his mental discipline and rising to his feet. “I feel quite at home.”

   “Evidently,” agreed Voldemort, walking around Lucius’ large wooden desk, his eyes never leaving Draco. “We were quite well situated before you and my Mr Potter arrived, and then we were…relocated,” he supplied with a hint of humour. “In Lucius’ home, a place I know well enough to see the modifications you’ve made to it.”

   “What do you want from me?” said Draco, cutting through Voldemort’s chatter. “What will you do to the Watchers?”

   Voldemort swept past him, his hands laced behind his back now. Bellatrix had hopped up into the plush leather chair behind the desk by the window, crouched like a feral creature, letting Godric’s sword rest on the desk. Voldemort only flicked his eyes towards it for the briefest of moments. “Excellent questions,” he replied instead. “You have an eager mind, and,” he added, turning to cast Draco a piercing glare. “A well defended one too.”

   Draco shifted his weight and tried to pull at his ropes without being noticed. Don’t drop the barriers, he urged himself. Keep him out of your head. Not that he had many surprises up his sleeve. “I had a good teacher,” he told Voldemort through dry lips. All the horrible stories of the terrible things Death Eaters had done to traitors were speeding through his brain, and bile was riding up in his mouth. They were going to hurt him, even more than Bellatrix had done already, of that he was sure.

   But Voldemort smiled and walked back to him as Bellatrix bobbed on her chair. “There is no need to fret Draco,” said the Dark Lord almost kindly. “You and I are entwined, linked like we are almost the same being, we are tied to each other.”

   He made it sound so glamorous, like he was talking about love. It made Draco shudder.

   He knew they were linked, Alex had said so, he said that he and Harry would have power like no other person in Limbo over the Voldemorts they had destroyed in the parallel universes, and that that power could destroy them again. But Voldemort couldn’t be happy about that prospect, that made no sense.

   “We’re nothing alike,” Draco spat instead, and Voldemort came to a halt in front of him.

   “In many respects,” said Voldemort. “You’re right. The most important of which being that you are still real, you are alive and have a body. A feat no one else in Limbo can boast, save for Mr Potter of course,” he added with a gentle smile.

   Draco clenched his jaw together to stop it from trembling. So he was right, he was going to torture him, his ‘real body’. “Is that why you sent all those Rhansyk to kill us then?” he demanded, his voice shaking.

   To his annoyance, both Voldemort and Bellatrix laughed. “Mr Malfoy,” said Voldemort, placatingly. “No one was trying to kill you. I admit that my servants do have a certain appetite for violence, but that was not their mission I can assure you.”

   Bellatrix grinned so much Draco thought it must have been painful. “Well I’m here to kill you,” he snarled, his fear and hatred the only thing keeping him standing. As far as he was concerned, the Rhansyk had all been very keen on killing him and Harry, he didn’t care what they said.

   Voldemort’s lips twitched, and he turned to walk towards Bellatrix. Draco had to only glance at the open door to the corridor before it was shut on him, locking him in with the two psychopaths. “Your bravery is commendable,” Voldemort lamented. “But it is also ill-placed and ill-conceived. You are captive and grievously outnumbered, and I am protected in ways you cannot fathom.”

   The Horcrux, thought Draco. Had Ron or Hermione managed to destroy the one that belonged to this Voldemort? How would Draco know? Would Voldemort feel it if they had?

   “However…” He stopped and slowly rubbed his long white fingers against each other. “This doesn’t have to be difficult.”

   “What?” Draco breathed instantly, contempt clear in his voice. “What doesn’t?”

   Voldemort smiled, his red eyes glinting like rubies in the lamp light. “Our little arrangement. Something – unique – I have to propose for the benefit of us both.”

   “I won’t help you,” said Draco. It was almost like he’d removed himself from the situation. There was no way out, he was in all likelihood going to die here, but he would never give into the monster standing before him. He would never betray the people he loved, or hurt innocent people, just to save his own skin. And the fact that he knew that with absolute certainty gave him a little bit of comfort.

   Only a little.

   “He hasn’t even asked you yet,” tutted Bellatrix with a sneer.

   Voldemort smiled again. “I think you might be surprised at how easy this could be for you.”

   Draco snorted. The ‘easy’ decisions were often the most dangerous ones. “If you’re going to destroy Limbo and the Multiverses, I’m dead anyway. I will not let the last thing I ever do be to help you.”

   Bellatrix hooted with laughter and Voldemort gave her a kind, patient look, like she was an excited child and they had a secret game going on. Draco shifted his chafed wrists again anxiously.

   “My dear boy,” said Voldemort. “Why ever would I want to destroy this wonderful place?”

   Because you’re insane? was what Draco really wanted to say, but he clamped his mouth shut.

   “This is my home now,” continued Voldemort, gliding his hands through the air to illustrate the room, the mansion, Limbo as a whole. “What possible gain would I have in destroying it?” He smiled. “When I can _rule_ it.”

   Draco’s insides went icy. _‘The King of all shall rule’_ \- that’s what the prophecy had said. “The Watchers?” he said, he eyes flicking between the two red pairs before him. “You want them…to affect their worlds?”

   Voldemort’s faux cheery demeanour slipped slightly. “Ah,” he said ruefully. “As nice an idea that might be, unfortunately our guests would not help us even if they had the capability.”

   “What a shock,” said Draco dryly.

   Voldemort’s good humour reappeared in a flash though. “But they don’t have to,” he said, stepping a little closer to Draco who tried not to flinch. “That’s the beauty of it.”

   “Of what?” snapped Draco. “If you don’t want to destroy Limbo, you want to rule it, fine. But I know there’s at least several thousand people out there fighting to stop you. If you think I’ll change their minds-”

   “Stupid boy!” spat Bellatrix, scrambling from her chair to seize the edge of the desk. “You’re thinking about it all backwards!”

   “Limbo is the in between space,” explain Voldemort calmly. “And although it has been a thrill to reclaim my body and utilise it with such efficiency in this new world, it is rather limited in its possibilities. But _you,”_ he beamed. “You and young Harry are the limitless ones.”

   Draco glared at him, his jaw clenched. “Because we’re in our real bodies,” he clarified. That’s what the Vikings were so excited about and why they had wanted to sell them before. “What do you want with our bodies?”

   “To take them,” breathed Voldemort, excitement alive in his voice.

   Draco hadn’t really been expecting that. He swallowed and tried not to show his surprise. “Take them where?” he asked evenly.

   Voldemort grinned from ear to ear, like an alley cat that had cornered its prey and was ready to pounce. “Why,” he said, delighted. “Into the real worlds.”

   Bellatrix’s attention was suddenly snapped away and she darted to the window, but Voldemort hardly seemed to notice.

   “If I go back to my reality,” said Draco, picking his words carefully. “I’ll just stay there. How does that help you?”

   “First,” said Voldemort. “You will be going to many, _many_ worlds, worlds you couldn’t even comprehend, so far from the home you know it will astound you. And secondly,” he rested his fingers on his lips, as if to hide a smirk. “It will not be you technically doing the travelling.”

   Draco felt his skin prickle. “What does that mean?” he asked.

   “It means,” snapped Bellatrix, jumping in front of his face and forcing him to stumble backwards. “That my master is going to take your body for his own, and use it to go into the real worlds, any ones he wants, to rule them as he sees fit, and you will be able to do nothing but watch on as one by one, all realities will fall before him and his double. Does THAT clear things up for you, you stupid boy!”

   “You are the vessel,” said Voldemort, as if it were a great blessing. “You and Harry are the only ones with the power to step back into reality, and then return here, to this haven. And in our incorporeal forms, my partner and I have the power to seep inside your minds, take control of your bodies and carry out our deeds as we wish.” He waved his hands again. “From this vantage point, we can have near omnipotence. Each Watcher has a way of seeing everything that happens in their world. We will be unstoppable.”

   Draco started at them both.

   This was so much worse than he’d imagined.

   “You want to possess me?” he said, taking a step back.

   Bellatrix slammed him with another Cruciatus Curse before he even knew what hit him. He screamed out as his skin blazed with excruciating pain, collapsing to the floor, gasping for air, flailing out his legs.

   _“ENOUGH!”_ boomed Voldemort, and the pain vanished in an instant, leaving Draco blinking in shock and taking shuddery, slow breaths on the burgundy carpet of his father’s study. He was aware from the corner of his eye of Bellatrix flinching away from her master. “There is _no_ need for that,” said Voldemort coldly.

   “But-” spluttered Bellatrix.

   “That is _my_ body you abuse,” Voldemort interrupted sternly. “The boy is now to be considered _sacred._ Do I make myself _clear?”_

   “Yes master,” she gasped, and fell to her knees, bowing her head. “Please,” she said into the carpet. “Please forgive me.”

   Draco swallowed and tasted blood. He must have bitten his tongue or cheek under the torture curse. He blinked slowly as Voldemort stepped over and gently touched Bellatrix’s hair. “There is no need for that,” he said soothingly. She looked up at him with wet doe eyes, and when he smiled she scrambled back on her feet, eagerness alight on her face.

   “Shall we try it now?” she breathed.

   His nod was barely visible, but she dived behind the desk again, her hands grabbing at Lucius’ globe shaped drinks cabinet, flipping the lid to reveal not the bottles of spirits that should have been underneath, but several potion ingredients that Draco couldn’t identify.

   He could taste the horror in his throat as real as the blood he was swallowing. Voldemort was going to take over his body, like an imperius curse, controlling every movement, every word he spoke. How could he have been so stupid, of course they didn’t want to destroy Limbo and the Multiverse, he had known the Dark Lord almost his whole life. He should have known power and control would always be their ultimate aim.

   He tried to steady his breathing, still shuddery after all the pain Bellatrix had inflicted on him, and watched what she was doing.

   “You need a spell to get into my head?” Draco asked, his voice coming out in a rasp.

   Bellatrix, thankfully, ignored him. But Voldemort looked down at him, his white, snake-like face smooth from expression. “We require a little help to merge, something that Bellatrix will provide us with shortly.”

   So he still had a few minutes, longer if he was lucky. But luck seemed to be the only thing Limbo was incapable of conjuring.

   Bellatrix was lining up the little bottles, pouches, boxes and phials along Lucius’ desk, but her red eyes kept flicking wearily at the window. Draco worried if she was looking at Harry, could she see the graveyard from here? Was he okay, had he run into his Voldemort yet – was the plan to take over his body too, so each of the Dark Lords had a vessel to step into the real worlds?

   Draco couldn’t imagine they would plan anything else. He wanted to warn Harry so badly, but he couldn’t even help himself. He had to stop him, somehow. He couldn’t let Voldemort get into any reality he chose. The damage he could do in those worlds was unthinkable. He could rally almost unlimited numbers of Death Eaters, reign terror over the Muggle populations, destroy the wizards and witches who opposed him over and over again. And with the Watchers locked in their dancing prison there would be no one to protect their universes, no one to guide them back from the chaos.

   How could he stop the spell, how could he escape? He was beaten and bound, but could he charge Bellatrix, wreck some of the ingredients? He pulled at his ropes again, the raw skin chaffing painfully. There would be no way he could move that fast before they stopped him, he had no chance. But he couldn’t just lie here and wait to be taken over, that was for sure. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

   He needed to get the sword back from his father’s desk, the one only he could use, but then what, fight Voldemort and Bellatrix at once? Maybe if the Horcrux had been destroyed, maybe he might have a chance. But he had no idea what Hermione or Ron, whoever had the bit of this Voldemort’s soul, was doing.

   His eyes drifted towards the window, and wondered how far up they were. Logically, it should have been a couple of floors, but nothing about the layout of this house was logical, it was like a dream. Perhaps if he could edge towards the window, he could get down to the ground if he imagined it hard enough. After all, he had imagined this whole scene, against the wishes of Voldemort and Bellatrix from what they’d said. Why couldn’t he just make it so the ground was right outside the window, rather than several meters down?

   An image flashed across his mind though; if he couldn’t alter the landscape, of his body lying broken at the foot of the house, still and lifeless.   Useless.

   Clarity, cool and certain, drifted over Draco’s mind like a gentle summer’s breeze. He stopped panting and straining, and just lay still.

   Voldemort wanted him because he was real, alive, because he could use his body in that state. So what if he changed that? What if he were to break his body beyond repair?

   What if he killed himself?

 

***

 

   Harry stirred. Something was jabbing him in the ribs, and he groaned in protest. “Wake up,” hissed a voice, but he didn’t want to listen, he felt light and clean, sensations he couldn’t remember in what felt like forever.

   Actually, what could he remember?

   He stretched his muscles, but they didn’t ache, he rubbed his eyes and blinked them open. It was night time, and this seemed right, as did the snow gently falling. But why wasn’t he cold?

   “Wake up!” came the voice again, and Harry blinked several times, taking a deep, cool breath into his lungs. There was grass beneath him, and mud, he moved his hands over it and tested his weight, pushing himself up into a sitting position. There was something hard behind his back, and as he turned he realised it was a headstone.

   “About time,” the voice said again, and Harry looked around confused. Until he saw a little red dragon crouched in front of him, his stubby arms crossed, his cobalt blue eyes glaring.

   “Puff!” cried Harry, some of his memories coming back to him. He was in Limbo, the world was in danger, no, the whole universe, all the universes! Creatures had been after him, Draco had been with him, and there was a graveyard...

   Puff huffed. “This is no time for sleeping,” he griped, prodding Harry’s leg through his jeans with a rather sharp claw.

   “Alright,” said Harry, still trying to shake away his foggy mind. Real fog wound around the two and the headstone, meaning he was having trouble getting a sense of what else was around them. “I,” he said, faltering. “Someone attacked me, I think...hang on,” he stopped looking around him and focused on just Puff. “Where did you go, you were in London, you went supernova on the Rhansyk, then we came here are you were gone.”

   Puff raised his hackles and jerked his snout up. “I had things to do,” he said distractedly. “What happened to your body?”

   Harry wanted to know what things could have been so important, but instead he found his hands resting on his arms, his thighs, his torso. “I don’t know,” he said, frowning. “I feel fine.”

   “Hmph,” said Puff. “That’s not good.”

   Something was dancing at Harry’s brain. “What happened to me?” he asked. “Did you see?”

   “I was busy,” said Puff with a roll of his eyes. It was then Harry finally realised his was covered head to toe in blood.

   Harry stared for a second. “Puff whose blood is that?” he asked in trepidation.

   Puff didn’t really answer. He just grinned and said “Yummy.”

   Harry swallowed, worry rising in his throat, and looked carefully through the fog. As it drifted by he could just about see a boot sticking up in a way that suggested it was attached to a foot on a body lying on its back. The way it was definitely not moving also suggested that body was dead.

   “Rhansyk?” Harry asked, hoping Puff hadn’t been slashing the throats of anyone friendly.

   Puff inspected then licked his claws. “Tastes like chicken.”

   Harry decided not to worry about the deceased Rhansyk, he’d have them all dead if he could. “Was I with Voldemort?” he asked, still trying to place how he ended up sat in a graveyard. He remembered arriving here with Draco, then splitting up…

   Suddenly he sat on his haunches, peering over the headstone, the one that had Sirius’ name written on it. “Voldemort had me,” he said breathlessly, his mind clearing up considerably. “And Bellatrix. They tied me up, they were doing some kind of ritual.” He turned back to Puff. “Did you free me?”

   Rather unflatteringly, Puff scoffed. “No,” he said simply, tapping his foot. “You were asleep here, the stitched up men had found you but I came and ate them. Then I poked you.”

   Harry wrapped his fingers around the cold stone and looked out through the murky cemetery again. “Thanks,” he muttered. “That’s cleared everything up.”

   “You always ask the wrong questions,” said Puff petulantly, sauntering to Harry’s side. “Are you going to sit here all day?”

   “Where did Voldemort go?” Harry asked, keeping his voice low. All he could see were headstones and fog. The house loomed over his left hand side further ahead, where it had been on the right next to him before so he had definitely moved around.

   Puff sighed and shook his head. _“They_ didn’t go anywhere,” he said. “They’re over there.” He pointed up in front of them. Harry swept his eyes over the scene for any movement, then picked his way between another couple of disintergrating Rhansyk bodies and several graves all bearing the now familiar names of the people who’s deaths he’d supposedly caused.

   “Are you sure?” he whispered to Puff, but he didn’t need a reply. At that moment Bellatrix’s peeling laughter drifted through the night, and he ducked behind the nearest headstone to conceal himself. “Puff,” he said a little more sternly. “What aren’t you telling me, why did they just let me go, how did I end up over there?”

   Puff ground his sharp teeth together. “Always all the wrong questions you two,” he griped. “I don’t know that, how would I know that?”

   Harry resisted the urge to snap back at him, and instead crept closer, listening to the unclear voices to guide him in the right direction.

   There was a large weeping willow between him and the group, and Harry figured it was the perfect cover for him to get a better look. Cautious of who else might already be lurking in there, he edged carefully between the swaying branches, Puff grumbling at his heals still. But under the canopy it was empty and calm, so Harry sped forward, dropping to the ground and peeking through the tendrils.

   What he saw on the other side almost stopped his heart.

   Bellatrix was talking with someone. That someone was Harry. There was no mistaking it, he knew every inch of his own reflection, and there he stood looking smug as Bellatrix and the bored man Gebhard fussed over his right shoulder. He paused a moment, and looked down at his own right shoulder. It didn’t hurt anymore, that was strange?

   “I don’t get it,” he whispered in the merest breath. “Where did Voldemort go?”

   Puff sniffed. “Smells like he’s still there.”

   Harry looked back. “Is that…another me, from another universe?” That concept was an entirely plausible explanation to him, compared to a year ago when he would have denied any such thing was possible.

   Puff just shrugged, leaving Harry to frown even deeper, an unpleasant, tingling sensation dancing up his spine. What kind of ritual had they done, had Voldemort turned into himself, like using polyjuice potion? Why, what was the point?

   And why on Earth had they let him go, that seemed completely contrary to everything Harry knew about Voldemort. Even if they didn’t need him anymore, Harry would have thought they would have just killed him.

   Harry strained his ears. “I can’t hear them,” he muttered to himself in frustration, and Puff sighed in irritation again.

   “They are talking,” he hissed slowly and carefully. “About a portal.” He rolled his eyes impatiently. “Humans.”

   Harry was so taken in by this information that he completely missed the insult. “Portal,” he breathed back. “What portal, where too?”

   The branches caught in a zephyr of snow and Harry dropped flat to the floor in case anyone was looking over. The Rhansyk were far enough away and totally absorbed in what was happening around the other version of himself, but he knew he couldn’t be too careful.

   “What portal, Puff?” he demanded again. “Does it have something to do with that other me, has Voldemort already gone through?”

   He was face to face with the little dragon, looking into his deep blue eyes, but it was the reflection off his fangs that made Harry ease away a little. “No,” said Puff haughtily.

   Harry took a deep breath before answering. “‘No’ what?” he asked calmly. This seemed to work, he sensed Puff liked having one up on him.

   “No, Voldemort has not gone through, they’re saying the portal will take some time to open. The curly haired woman keeps calling the other you ‘Master’.”

   That was it then, Voldemort must have altered his appearance to look like Harry, but for what reason he couldn’t possibly fathom.

   Puff suddenly arched his back like an angry cat, pivoted on his haunches and pounced out the back of the tree, away from the gathering of Rhansyk.

   Harry automatically reached for his wand, and it wasn’t until he had pulled it from his pocket did he realise that Bellatrix had last been in possession of it. He stared, dumbfounded, for a second, trying to work out just how he had got it back, when the soft sounds of a kafuffle drew him out from under the tree after Puff.

   The Rhansyk was the skinny sailor boy Harry had seen deliver the message to Voldemort before. Puff had taken him by surprise from the looks of it, and ripped out his throat first so he couldn’t call for help. The boy was making wet choking sounds and flailing around though, still fighting back as Puff slashed at his belly. The boy wasn’t about to give up and die though, he was swinging his fists with extraordinary skill, and Harry saw a glimpse of why this boy had been able to sin enough to become a monster in his afterlife. He was a killer through and through.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ Harry hissed, blasting the sailor off his feet. Puff didn’t hesitate a second, he just launched himself at the boy and it was all over in a messy second.

   There was a shout from the group they had been watching, and Harry’s feet sped into action. “Go, before they find us!” he cried at Puff, who tore something bloody from the dead Rhansyk, grinned, and raced after Harry on his four little legs.

   The pull that had drawn Harry so definitely to the graveyard was completely gone now. This made Harry nervous but at least he now felt his legs were his own again. Why hadn’t he been more insistent he and Draco stayed together? He cursed himself bitterly, but now he had no hesitation.

   “Into the house,” he breathed as darkness and fog shielded them from the Rhansyk eyes he could feel behind them. The two of them darted between headstones inscribed with Harry’s parents’ and friends’ names, his eyes scanning every inch of the building towering over their right hand side. Sure there must be a door that led inside soon?

   “There!” cried Harry, spotting a closed, single wooden door up ahead, and relief coursed through him. He didn’t even try opening it, he just cried _“Alohomora!”_ and yanked the handle down.

   They were standing in a dark kitchen, the bigger kind Harry would have expected to see in a hotel. So this was Draco’s house?

   He stepped forward, eager to keep the distance between him and the pursuing Rhansyk. If they had followed them it would be logical to check the first door they came to, and on that thought Harry nipped back to blast it with a quick _“Colloportus,”_ to lock it magically. Bellatrix was the only Rhansyk with a wand, and she would be too busy fussing over her beloved Voldemort to chase after some random noise, or at least that’s what he hoped.

   The house was quiet, and for the moment it gave Harry a sense of being safe. “Why would Voldemort change to look like me?” he wondered out loud as he and Puff navigated their way around the central island preparation counter, careful not to knock any pots or pans down with a crash.

   Puff, who had jumped up to walk along the edge countertop on all fours, shrugged his scaly back, his claws clack-clacking on the counter. “I am pretty sure,” he said in that nasally voice of his. “That that man is insane.”

   Harry couldn’t argue with that. He shook his head. “It makes no sense, why would he change his appearance, where are they opening a portal too, why would they let me go?” He looked down at his hand. “And how did I get my wand back?” He wrapped his fingers around it, and Puff tutted.

   “Why would you ask? Just be thankful. What’s that music?”

   Harry stopped, his senses on alert. “What?” he said after a moment. “What music, where’s it coming from?”

   Puff ran his tongue over his sharp teeth in deliberation. “Up,” said the dragon, hopping back down to the floor, trotting along the murky corridor and looking up the stairs. “Human music, nasty, scratchy.”

   Harry looked around the dark and empty house, resisting lighting his wand so his eyes could grow accustomed to the shadows. It looked empty, like someone had just moved out, and it felt lifeless. “I can’t hear it,” he admitted, shaking his head. “What do you think it is?”

   Puff hopped up a few steps, and sniffed the air. “I have no idea,” he said, rubbing his nose as if what he’d smelt had tickled it. “All kinds of scents. Could be tasty.”

   He hopped up another few steps, and Harry darted over to the landing. “Wait,” he hissed, looking around apprehensively. “We need to find Draco.”

   Puff blinked slowly. “I can’t smell any humans in any direction but this one, but if you want to go gallivanting off you own way, don’t let me stop you.” He put on a front of being hurt, and placed a clawed hand on his chest, shook his head and closed his eyes.

   Harry clenched his jaw. “Fine,” he said, following up the staircase. “Lead the way.”

   Puff laughed at the back of his throat in a way that made it sound more like a growl. He spun around and began hopping up the steps again. Harry gave a glance back down the corridor to the kitchen; it didn’t seem like anyone had followed them into the house, but still he wanted to keep his wits about him.

   They reached the landing and headed left just as Harry heard the sound of glass breaking from down below. Puff’s head snapped back before raising his eyes to Harry, who in turn jutted his chin, indicating they should leg it. The faint sound of crunching glass drifted up through the house as Harry and the dragon sped further into its depths.

   “We know you’re in here!” cried a voice, rough and husky.

   “You can’t hide from us!” called another, and excitable woman thought Harry, although they were running at such a rate the voices were fading even as the words were spoken.

   Puff took them up another level of stairs, and Harry thought maybe he heard another shout, it could have even been a scream, coming from somewhere around on their floor. “Did you hear that?” he asked Puff, but the little dragon just kept on running.

   “The music is this way,” he whined as Harry looked over his shoulder, unsure.

“It could have been Draco,” he argued.

   “I smell him _this_ way,” Puff argued back, which made Harry concede to drop it. Maybe he hadn’t heard anything, maybe it was the Rhansyk’s voices bouncing off the walls? He trusted Puff’s nose more than some half-imagined cry.

   “Who’s there!” demanded the husky voice, still far away but not enough to give Harry any comfort. “We know you’re in here, come out and we won’t hurt you!”

   Both Harry and Puff scoffed at the same time.

   They turned another corner as their Rhansyk pursuers called out after them again. But Puff pelted towards a set of double doors and skidded to a halt in front of them, plonking his bottom on the floor and swishing his tail like a dog that had lead his master to some sort of prize.

   “Here?” said Harry confused, looking over his shoulder, expecting the Rhansyk to come charging around the corner. “I still can’t hear anything?”

   “Urgh, just _open_ it,” snarled Puff. Harry gritted his teeth and did as he was told, thinking that this might be a place to hide at any rate.

   He swung the doors open to be greeted by a dark, empty ballroom. “Told you,” said Puff triumphantly, scampering into the room.

   Harry couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows in disbelief. “Told me what?” he asked, stepping over the threshold. “I still can’t hear any-”

   His words died in his throat as he moved into the room. It was like he’d breached an invisible membrane and stepped into a different world within the ballroom. Abruptly, in the blink of an eye, it with lit up with hundreds of torches and candles in the chandeliers. Music and movement overwhelmed him, as suddenly he was standing on the edge of a great dance, whirling in a mass of bodies. He inhaled, and barely noticed as Puff darted back and slammed the doors shut again.

   The noise drew the attention of the dancers, or some of them at least. “Help!” cried a burly man with a walrus moustache. “Don’t just stand there lad, for the love of God, help us!”

   Harry stared stupidly as the man wrenched fruitlessly against his partner, a beaming pretty girl in a many-layered gown who seemed to be enjoying the dance immensely.

   “Effie said she saw a boy!” said another woman in a maid’s uniform, pulling against her handsome partner. “Effie! Effie your boy is back!”

   “What,” stuttered Harry down at Puff as more and more of the struggling dancers began calling out to him. “What is this, what’s happening?” Now he could hear the music he wished he couldn’t. It was boomingly loud and fraught, a dramatic tango that was making his heart race.

   Puff looked disappointed. “Watchers,” he said grumpily. “And dolls. Can’t eat either.”

   “Dolls?” Harry repeated in confusion. “What are dolls, what do you mean Watchers, like Alex?”

   But Puff was in a sulk, and had dropped himself onto the floor with his arms folded and his gaze purposefully fixed on a candle dripping onto a vacant, plump chez long.  

   “That’s Harry Potter!” yelled another man, further in the throng than the rest. He was twisting his head alarmingly, trying to get a proper look at Harry. “It must be Alex’s boy, not Seamus’! Effie are you there, can you see!”

   “Wait, what?” said Harry, his pulse quickening. “Seamus’ boy, you mean Draco?” He stepped forward, approaching the dancers as they spun in front of him like a churning river. “Have you seen Draco Malfoy, was he here?”

   There were so many voice shouting over the music, some at him, a lot at each other, Harry felt like a wave was crashing down on him.

   “Look, it _is_ the Potter boy!”

   “Do something, get us out of here!”

   “Effie! Can anyone see Effie!”

   Harry had his wand out in front of him, uncertain what he should, or even _could_ do, and his eyes glanced back towards the door. Were the Rhansyk on the other side, why hadn’t they followed them in?

   “I don’t know any spells to separate them,” he said breathlessly. He wasn’t really talking to Puff, but the dragon responded anyway.

   “Oh, well I guess we’d better run along then, it’s not like they’ve seen the Malfoy human or could help you or anything.”

   As was probably his intention (or not, Harry couldn’t really tell) Puff’s words goaded him into action. He screwed up his face, and cast the first spell that came to mind. _“Mobilicorpus!”_ he shouted at the couple who happened to be twirling past him.

   Nothing happened to them, and the woman shrieked in frustration, kicking at her partner. But then from inside the crowd pushed an unattached dancer, a beautiful, cheerful woman who was making a beeline now for Harry.

   _“Stupefy!”_ Harry cried, hoping to knock the woman unconscious, but the spell hit her straight on and she didn’t flinch. Harry stumbled backwards, and Puff launched for her. But as his claws slashed out it sounded like he met with metal, and other than a couple of sparks flying he did absolutely no damage.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ Harry tried as Puff bounced off her. _“Diffindo! Confringo!”_ Nothing worked, and now he was backed up against the double doors. _“Protego!”_ he used instead, throwing up a shield charm over him and Puff, who had scuttled back and was now cowering behind his ankles.   The woman reached out, his shield having no effect…

   Without warning, the doors opened out behind Harry and he fell backwards. That’s it, he thought, the Rhansyk had found them, it was a fate between the stitched up monsters or gleeful, possessed dancers.

   But then the world lit up with a blinding light, and Harry felt a booming pulse rocket through his body and fly out through the room. He threw up his arms and cried out, as did most of the room by the wall of sound assaulting his ears. The music screeched to a halt, violins and cellos snapping strings and bows and clattering to the floor.   He felt more than saw Puff jump into his lap as the pulse came again and then again before it stopped.

   The shouts of the Watchers drew Harry’s arms down from his face, and he breathed in and out steadily as he looked at all the people before him. The men, women and other creatures who had been forced into dancing were now managing to pull away from the grips of the captors, who in turn were jerking and twitching unnaturally. From those nearest to him, Harry could hear sounds of gears crunching and winding down mingled in with the curses and profanities of the Watchers pushing them down to the floor.

   One of the handsome men was still smiling as he slammed into the luxurious, gold fringed carpet, his eyes fixed on Harry as he beamed genuinely and his body gave one last spasm, before becoming still.

   Harry looked down at Puff who had his mouth hanging open as the Watchers hugged, punched the air and wept. Almost afraid of seeing what would greet him, Harry slowly turned his body around to look into the corridor beyond. What remained of their two Rhansyk pursuers lay smoking and disintegrating on the floor, so he knew it hadn’t been them to free the Watchers.

   Blinking, Harry’s eyes moved upwards, along the bodies of the three men who were standing determinedly on the threshold of the doors leading into the ballroom.

   Alex was trying to suppress a Cheshire cat grin. Godric’s eyes were calculating the room and its inhabitants, his wand still pointed forwards. And in between them both stood the tiny, unassuming figure of the Librarian Merlin, his hands spread in front of him, his whole frame glowing with wisps of smoke curling upwards, power ebbing physically from him.

   Harry looked back into the room, where people nearest the front had also stopped to stare at their rescuers, then back to the trio.

   “See,” said Puff squirming smugly against Harry’s jeans. “I _told_ you I’d had things to do.”

 

***

 

   Unable to stop herself from screaming, Sarah tried to pull away and lash out, but it only took her a second to recognise the bedraggled creature that was currently digging her fingers into her flesh.

   _“Hermione!”_ she cried, flinging her arms around the other girl. “Oh I’m so glad I found you! Are you okay, what’s going on?”

   “They took Terry’s wand,” Hermione stammered. She looked awful; her skin was grey, her lips were blue and her eyes were bloodshot red. “I didn’t know what to do, I set of the fireworks-”

   “I saw them!” interrupted Sarah happily. “Look, I found the Horcrux!” She pulled the key away from her neck to show her, but a noise caught Hermione’s attention and her head snapped back over her shoulder.

   “We have to keep moving,” she said, pulling Sarah to her feet and moving them into the trees and the field behind.

   “Hey,” snapped Sarah, hurt. “I found the Horcrux, didn’t you hear me?”

   “We’re not alone, they’re after me,” replied Hermione, marching them along, back towards the supermarket end of the road. Her voice was tight and detached, and Sarah suddenly got the impression that things were even worse than she realised.

   “Who?” she said, snatching her arm out of Hermione’s grip. “Who’s after you?” Sarah suddenly came to a halt, like she was really seeing Hermione for the first time. “Hang on,” she gasped, dread swimming in her guts. “Hang on you said someone took Terry’s wand – where’s Terry. Hermione, where’s Terry?”

   Hermione stopped a few feet ahead, and Sarah could see in the pale moonlight she was shaking, her eyes staring listlessly at the ground.

“He was protecting me,” she said in barely more than a whisper.

   Sarah didn’t need any more of an explanation. “It’s okay,” she cried, her throat contracting as she dashed over and wrapped her arms around Hermione. The other girl was bigger, but she managed it. “It’s okay, we’ll change him back, we’ll change them all back. We just need to find the spell caster, right? So-”

   “Found him,” said Hermione, pulling away and hugging herself, lifting her eyes to meet Sarah’s.

   Sarah gawped. “I’m sorry, what?”

   “That’s how Terry – he-” She swallowed and rubbed rainwater into her eyes. “There were hundreds of zombies and he lured them away so I could do the revealing spell with his wand. But then the Death Eaters showed up, the zombies got him and Crouch got me. But I got away, and I know where Quirrell’s cauldron is, but without a wand…” She trailed off, shaking her head and hugging herself tighter.

   Despite everything, Sarah found her face splitting into a massive grin. She reached into her pocket, and pulled out Hermione’s wand with delight. The look on the other girl’s face made every zombie she’d had to fight off worth it. “Oh,” she squeaked, her face crumbling into tears and she reached out with trembling fingers. “Oh, oh.”

   “It was under the rubble at my house,” Sarah explained. “So now you can stop the zombie spell, yeah?”

   Hermione cradled her wand like beloved pet had been returned to her. “Yes,” she said with a nod. “He’s not even casting it any more, he said it was strong enough to work by itself.”

   Sarah couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “They just told you all this?” she said incredulously.

   Hermione looked sheepish. “I pretended I’d help them,” she explained. “I wanted to try and get the tooth but Crouch still has it, he put it in his pocket.”

   Sarah’s face must have conveyed that what Hermione was saying was making no sense, so she sighed and started again.

   “The zombie spell is a side effect of what they’ve done to the town. We were right, the curse and the dimensional leap are linked.”

   Even though when they’d been discussing it, Sarah had agreed with the theory, she still found herself shocked. “How?” she spluttered.

   Hermione rolled her shoulders. She seemed to have a fresh spark of life in her since getting her wand back, and started walking hurriedly again. “They’re using everyone’s minds as an enigma machine. They’re trying to work out how to open a portal and follow their Voldemort into Limbo.”

   “That’s insane,” said Sarah, deadpan.

   Hermione shrugged. “You’ve obviously never met Crouch or Quirrell. They’re obsessed. I told them I was from another reality and could do what they wanted.”

   “But that was a bluff, yes?” clarified Sarah sternly. She’d had enough traitors in the form of Peter Pettigrew to last a lifetime.

   “Of course,” said Hermione hastily. “But Crouch has something we need.” She reached up and gently held the key that was resting so heavily on Sarah’s chest. Sarah felt her eyes go wide.

   “Something to kill it?” she said.

   Hermione nodded. “A Basilisk tooth. Do you remember Draco telling us that Crouch looked after the one that attacked your school?”

   “No,” admitted Sarah. “But if it does the job, that’s all I care about.”

   “It’s got a deadly venom in, my Harry almost died from it. Seamus said magic poison would be enough to destroy it, so I’m sure this would do.”

   “Okay,” said Sarah resolutely. “Then we need to stop going in this direction, don’t we?”

   Hermione raised her eyebrows and stopped walking. “But they’re chasing me?”

   “But,” replied Sarah emphatically. “We need to get the tooth and stop the curse, yes. And now you have your wand we can do that.”

   Hermione bit her lip, then nodded. “Yes, you’re right. We need to tackle them, us two.”

   Sarah managed a weak smile. “Two is better than one,” she said.

   Their sweet moment was spoiled by a zombie boy bursting through the trees. Sarah rose her wand to defend herself, but Hermione beat her to it.

   A blaze of sparks tore through the air, blasting the zombie backwards in shock. The blue electricity still crackled like it was absorbing the magic, but the force of it rocked him off his feet. “Come on!” cried Hermione, grabbing Sarah’s arm and steering them both back on the road. “They’ll have seen that, and we need to get back to the cauldron!”

   Sarah limped back onto the high street, but she only made it a few steps before Hermione wheeled on her and fired an anti-inflammatory spell at her foot, followed by a pain killer.

   “Better?” she asked.

   Sarah resisted the urge to swear. “You really are better with your own wand, aren’t you?”

   Hermione managed to grin despite her depleting state. “Those Death Eaters aren’t going to know what’s hit them.”

 

***

 

   Ron spluttered in shock, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

   “You betrayed us!” screamed Abbey, both hands on the tomahawk to stop it from shaking. “You let them into our _HOME!”_

   Crabapple looked genuinely terrified. “Now everyone keep calm,” she said, waving her arms between Death Eaters and students. The Death Eaters seemed to have gotten over their shock at being attacked by fireballs and were practically growling at the teenagers facing them down. “Abigail, you don’t know what you’ve got there.”

   “Don’t I?” she challenged, levelling the tomahawk parallel with the ground, pumping out another mass of flames that blazed through the rain and exploded into another unfortunate tree, causing several people to duck, screaming, batting flames from their robes.

   Ron thought maybe he understood then, why Abbey had left him alone. She’d gone back to the hall of Monuments, somehow got the artefact from the Thunderbird cabinet. The artefact that had burned for a hundred years.

   “They killed kids!” yelled a boy with a jade and gold tie. “They’re lying in the street!”

   _“How could you!”_ snarled another Firefly girl with ebony skin being held back by a much larger boy she was almost clawing in her fervour.

   “Shut up you whelp!” said one of the Death Eaters, dancing on his toes and throwing edgy looks at Crabapple. She still had her hands up.

   “No one’s dead,” she said. “This isn’t how it has to be, kids back away, _back away!”_

   “Chris is dead,” Abbey retaliated, brandishing the tomahawk. “And unless someone stops you he won’t be the last.”

   Ron was breathless, panicked. They had maybe seconds before someone snapped. He had to get the hat to Abbey.

   But she had other ideas.

   “Hey Ron!” she called, the tension ready to erupt. “I found your magic fire!”

   She launched the tomahawk into the air, and Crabapple lurched forward screaming _“NO!”_ Spells exploded from both sides, and people were blasted off their feet in a shower of colour. Ron scrambled up, his trainers slipping through the mud, his eyes on the blade twisting over and over through the air.

   _“Accio axe!”_ he bellowed, and felt the spell snag the weapon and send it shooting into his outstretched hand. Luckily his fingers wrapped around the hilt, but the flames were scorching and he felt the heat on his hand, forearm, face.

   He dropped to the ground and rolled by the protection of the car as screams and hollers rang through the air. Ron couldn’t see what was going on, but it didn’t sound good. People were all around him, taking cover in the trees and pulling injured comrades away from the fighting. Curses were so thick through the air the rain was turning to steam, and Crabapple was screaming at them all to stop.

   _“Non lethal force!”_ she was bellowing, but Ron had a terrible feeling the Death Eaters weren’t listening.

   But he didn’t have time to think about anyone else just yet, he only had one shot at this. So he thrust his wand away and snatched the red cap from where he’d shoved it in his back pocket, threw it on the ground, and drove the tomahawk into it as hard and as fast as he could.

   A dome of light exploded outwards from the hat, throwing Ron to the ground. All the sound dipped out, and then the energy was pulled back in, centring around the hat.

   Was that it? thought Ron blearily. Had he done it, was it destroyed? The tomahawk had flung from his hand and the rain was pelting down on him lying in the mud, making him feel like it was trying to suck him below.

   His ears were ringing as he attempted to slog his limbs out of the clawing mulch, but he could still hear the shouting around him. There was a pillar of light shining upwards from the Horcrux, and Ron really hoped that meant it was dead. But, a voice niggled at the back of his mind, surely if it was dead it would just be dormant, back to a normal cap?

   There was movement from within the pillar as he squinted it the brightness, and Ron’s heart hammered in his chest.

   Someone stepped out of the light.

   It was a boy, of average height, toned muscles and a t-shirt on that read ‘East County High Football Team.’

   “Chris?” said Ron, shielding his eyes from the light and the rain. But how could it be? Chris was dead, he was a Muggle, his ghost would have just crossed straight over. But here he was, misty and outlined in blue, his light hair at odd angles, swinging his car keys around on his finger.

   “Oh Ron,” he sneered, his phantom eyes glistening. “Look what you did to me.”

   People were shouting and fighting all around him, but it was like Ron was in his own little bubble, just him, and the morbid vision of a boy he had barely been able to call friend before his life was snuffed out in front of his eyes.

   “No,” croaked Ron. “No, you’re not Chris, he’s dead, the Horcrux is _dead_ – why didn’t it _work!”_

   “Because you killed me,” Chris spat out. He walked forwards and Ron scurried back on his elbows.   “I trusted you and you let me down Ron, you’re useless.”

   “No,” stammered Ron, flinching as a Death Eater came running towards him, but they were blasted off their feet before they got close enough to do any damage. Ron silently thanked whoever his saviour was, but didn’t take his eyes away from the vision of Chris.

   This had to be the Horcrux, Ron couldn’t think it would possibly be anything else. But _why?_ Seamus had said magic fire would kill it, as far as Ron could see the only thing it had done was bring it more to life.

   “No,” Ron insisted. “You’re not real, you’re just that hat.” He pawed around, finding the hilt of the tomahawk and extracted it heavily from the mud. “You’re a bit of You-Know-Who, you’re not Chris, you’re the stupid hat!” But Chris sneered at him, making him feel pathetic as he barely managed to hold the blade aloft.

   “And what are you hoping to do with that?” hissed Chris with malice. “You couldn’t manage to do anything by yourself, so you dragged me and A.J. into this mess and _I died!”_

   Ron swallowed down a retch and tried to keep the trembling axe steady. “I’m sorry,” he found himself saying as Chris took another step forward. “I’m so sorry.” Even if this wasn’t really Chris, the pretend version of him was right. It was Ron’s fault, he should never have let two Muggles get mixed up in magical business, be lead into the path of You-Know-Who. He was so selfish. And weak, selfish, weak and stupid.

   “You’re nothing without Harry and Hermione,” said Chris, a wicked smile curling on his lips. “This is what happens when people rely on you. You let them down.”

   “No,” he whimpered, screwing up his face, but hot tears were trying to seep out and mingle with the cold rain. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”

   “Ron!” cried Abbey, and he blinked from his reverie to see her grappling hand to hand with a robust woman in black robes. “That ain’t Chris, you know it ain’t-!” The woman spun her and she went flying, her head cracking into a tree.

   _“NO!”_ screamed Ron, but snapped around to see Chris laughing.

   “See?” he said. “You can’t do anything right.”

   Ron jerked his head back around. Abbey was lying still on the floor for the second time in an hour, and he couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. He twisted his body around in the leaves and the mud, and tomahawk still in front of him. “No,” he breathed, his anger for Abbey pushing the word out. “You’re not Chris, and even if you were, _I_ didn’t kill you! Bellatrix killed you!”

   He took a step forward and the phantom Chris took a step back. “If it hadn’t been for you I never would have left home,” the other boy countered.

   “You’re _not_ Chris!” replied Ron through gritted teeth, but the ghost laughed again.

   “But you know I’m right, don’t you?” he said cruelly. “In your heart, you know I’m only telling you what you already know – that you’re a screw up? That it is your fault that Chris died, that you should have protected him and now you’ll have to live the rest of your pathetic life with that weighing you down.” He smirked. “It would be better for everyone if you just died.”

   Ron felt the tomahawk dropping, and Chris seemed to swell in size. There was movement around him and people were apparently noticing the glowing boy by the car, but no one approached them.

   “I mean, really,” Chris carried on. “Who would miss you if you were gone, who would care? Your family in this world hate you for taking their _real_ son away, they don’t want you, and if you’re family can’t stand you, who’s left?”

   Ron’s throat constricted, but his chest fluttered. “Harry,” he croaked. “Hermione-”

   Chris swelled again as he beamed with mirth, towering several feet above Ron now. “You truly believe that?” he scoffed. “The Boy That Lived and his brilliant best gal – that they’d even notice if you weren’t sniffing around their heals anymore?” Chris’ eyes grew cold. “It’d be a relief.”

   Ron tried to stifle the shudder that rattled his chest, but it was crushing him down as much as the pouring rain. “No,” he managed to breath out though. “No Harry isn’t like that.” He hoisted the blade up a few inches again, and gripped the hilt as tight as he could. “You may be right about me, but not Harry, not Hermione, they’d never leave me behind, I know.” And he did know. When he’d though that very fear had been proven to him, when Harry’s name had come out of the Goblet of Fire, he’d been shown how wrong his was eventually. It was his own stupidity that had ostracised him from the other two, not them.   “Harry and Hermione would miss me, I’m important to them.”

   “No,” said Chris coldly. “You’re not.”

   But Ron had something to grasp now, something to boost him forwards. “Yes, I am,” he retorted stubbornly. “And you are _not_ Chris, and even if you were, _I_ didn’t kill you!”

   Chris sneered. “Because it wasn’t your curse? You think that lets you off the hook? You shouldn’t have dragged me and A.J. into this, you put us in harm’s way!”

   “You’re right,” said Ron, sticking his chin in the air, the tomahawk pointed at Chris’ smoky blue head. “I was selfish, I wanted their help. But I _didn’t_ cast that curse, and I’m not going to let you stop me.”

   He sucked in a deep breath and finally lunged with the flaming axe, swinging it clumsily through Chris’ transparent body.

   He only felt a small amount of resistance as the sword tore through the misty form, but the phantom screamed and twisted, flailing in what might have been mistaken for pain. There was another gust of wind, a force that made Ron rebound before he even got the sword all the way through Chris’ body, and he stumbled backwards again, the Thunderbird god’s weapon sizzling in the rain as he struggled to keep it aloft.

   Why wasn’t the tomahawk killing the Horcrux! Did he need something else? He didn’t have anything else, Ron thought miserably as he got his footing again.

   Chris was still growing, but his features were warping, becoming distorted like they were melting. He was screaming dementedly, and Ron sensed rather than saw people moving away, fleeing into the trees.

   “What IS that!” someone screamed.

   A pair of hands grabbed Ron’s shoulders, and he almost swung around with his blade, but a familiar voice called his name just in time.

   “Ron!” slurred Abbey groggily. “We have to go!” Her eyes were blinking but wild, trying to take in the spirit form in front of them, and a gash of red blood was still clear on her temple despite the pounding rain.

   “No,” he uttered, pulling free and standing before the mutated Chris again. “That’s the Horcrux, I have to stop it!”

   He realised though that the oversized boy had stopped changing and was flexing its new body now, in the shape of another boy, this one dark haired with sharp features and robes that looked oddly familiar.

   “Master!” wailed Crabapple from her position still on the road, and fell to her knees. The phantom was about ten foot tall and grinning maliciously. It turned back to Ron, advancing threateningly.

   “You have no power over me, boy,” he said in a warm, English voice. “You cannot stop me, you are weak and alone and my servants will _crush you down!”_

   Tom Riddle, realised Ron with a sickening lurch. He was talking to the young Voldemort.

   “He ain’t alone!” screamed Abbey, shooting a spell at the Horcrux, but it just sailed through like it was a ghost. However the other children saw, and those not fighting for their lives against Death Eaters started shooting at Riddle too, cursing and threatening it.

   “Get outta here!”

   “Leave us alone!”

   “Take THAT!”

   The phantom didn’t even seem to notice, just stalked even closer towards Ron and Abbey. But Ron’s heart was swelling. These students were all strangers to him, and yet they weren’t backing down, weren’t leaving him to die at the hands of the Death Eaters and the terrible creation only feet away.

   The adults were retaliating, blasting down the attacking children to stop them firing on Riddle. This had to end, now.

   Ron jumped forward and slashed at Riddle again with the flame, but he jerked unnaturally, his features moving around the blade rather than stepping back from it. Ron grunted and swung clumsily back on the rebound, storming forwards, forcing Riddle back towards the red hat. The blade was getting closer and with every hit Riddle twitched and roared out. “You won’t win!” said Ron, sweat running down his back. “I won’t let Harry down, you hear me? I WON’T!”

   He flicked the tomahawk around with a sizable grunt, straining his muscles and levelled it just like Abbey had done, pumping out the ferocious fireball. Riddle roared in fury as it tore though his smoky form, dispersing it into something ghostly and far less scary, so Ron carried on the momentum, swung the axe around again, and drove the blade firmly down through the centre of the red baseball cap.

   The Horcrux spirit suddenly pulled back together in its form, but as it did it dropped to his knees, screaming. Ron stumbled backwards, leaving the tomahawk vibrating in the ground and tripping over his own trainers, landing back in the mud. “Move!” cried Abbey, her hands under his arms, dragging him backwards.

   Like before, Riddle was melting into something unrecognisable, but this time he was shrinking in size too, like ice cream on a hot day. His screams were inhuman, but Ron wasn’t scared anymore.

   “Die!” he shouted, pulling away from Abbey and crawling through the gritty, soaking leaves. “You hear me? DIE!”

   The Horcrux’s screams were fading, like an echo, and within moments the silvery light had vanished, plunging the forest into darkness once again.

   “What have you _done!”_ wailed Crabapple. Ron had quite forgotten about her, but she was steamrollering towards them, fury contorting her face.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ yelled several voices at once, blasting her with the spell from all angles. Her body lifted off the ground with the impact, before she dropped back into the mud with a squelch. Ron looked up to see the students grim-faced and panting. Some of the Death Eaters were stubbornly still fighting on, but most had vanished during his defeat of the Horcrux and Crabapple’s demise spurred another couple to apparate on the spot. It looked like a few staff members had managed to join the skirmish and the remaining followers of You-Know-Who were quickly realising the odds weren’t in their favour anymore.

   It was over.

   Ron managed a strangled sort of gasp of relief, then fell into the mud himself, his vision swimming, his limbs shaking and his heart racing at a million miles an hour.

   “Ron,” cried Abbey, rolling him over and digging her fingers into his arms. “Ron are you okay, you did it, please, don’t – don’t-”

   But the darkness felt warm, like a blanket and a nice cup of tea. Ron thought maybe he was smiling as his eyes fluttered closed. “Go get ‘em Harry,” he murmured, then let sleep take him whole.


	15. Lights (Part Four)

Chapter Seven - Part Four

 

   Draco had to use every ounce of will he had to shield his thoughts from Voldemort as he lay on the floor of his father’s study. Kill himself, could he do it? Never mind ‘could’, he realised. The real question was ‘how’ – how could he manage that with his arms and legs bound and his wand and sword lying tauntingly on the desk in front of him?

   He tried to breath in slowly to stop his head from spinning. His broken fingers throbbed distractingly with pain and his skin was vibrating from the numerous Crucio curses Bellatrix had inflicted on him. Was this the answer, was there any other way?

   No, he resigned himself. Not unless he knew the Horcrux had been destroyed, anchoring Voldemort in Limbo and giving him his advantage over anything Draco might throw at him. And unless he knew for sure it was gone, Draco couldn’t risk the attack, or losing the element of surprise. Someone with such a towering sense of self preservation would never guess Draco’s suicidal intent, and that would be his advantage.

   Bellatrix was grumbling as she mixed ingredients carefully into a small cauldron. “She had help,” she was saying. “I know she did, all those Rhansyk out there. Not fair-”

   “This is not a race,” sighed Voldemort patiently, looking down at Draco with a smile that did not reach his eyes. “We are on the precipice of history, the worlds will never be the same again. When eternity stretches before us, we can afford to take a little time to ensure success.”

   Draco grunted and managed to shift his weight so he was sitting. Bellatrix flicked her wand at him without even looking up from what she was doing. “Stay still,” she barked.

   “Why?” Draco snapped back. “I can’t go anywhere, and if you’re going to highjack my body, I’d rather I was standing with what remains of my dignity.”

   Voldemort chuckled; a genuine, chilling sound. “Let him stand,” he said placatingly to Bellatrix and she scowled and fired another spell at her potion again. The Dark Lord turned to Draco as he awkwardly gripped a shelf on the nearest book case and heaved himself upwards. “Surely Lucius’ son can see the glory of my scheme?” he said as if he was asking Draco where or not he liked the colour of his new robes.

   “Just because I can’t escape,” said Draco with a sneer. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it. And I know there are people out there who’ll do anything to stop you.”

   Voldemort’s mouth twitched into a sad smile. “And when we are joined, I shall know these people too, and dispose of them.”

   Draco’s inside’s ran icy, but he kept his face neutral. “I won’t help you willingly, anything you get from me you’ll have to rip out.”

   Bellatrix’s face looked up from her work at this, eager.

   Voldemort shook his head and paced across the little study. Draco dared take a step back towards the desk, but neither of them seemed to notice. If he could just get a few feet closer…

   “You are much more like your mother,” said Voldemort. “Compared to the Draco I knew in my world.”

   “You killed my mother,” said Draco as calmly as he could. “Twice.”

   “She was weak,” replied Voldemort dismissively.

   “No,” shouted Draco, the hatred boiling up in him. “Not in my world, she broke free, from you, from my _father,_ we did it together. I know who she really was, and _that’s_ why you killed her.” Draco took a shuddery breath, a mad smile on his face. “Because she was strong.”

   Am I that strong? a small voice challenged him. Can you do what she did, throw yourself on your sword for the people you love?

   In that split second of thought, Hermione’s face drifted in front of his mind’s eye, and his stomach contracted physically. She was alone, possibly dying, he would never see her again – could he really leave her?

   Voldemort’s head whipped around. Draco had let his guard down, thinking of Hermione and his mother, and Voldemort had glimpsed his thoughts. How could he have been so careless! He lunged for the table, trying to get his bound hands on the hilt of the sword, to swing it at whoever was nearest or to just plunge into his own belly, but Voldemort roared out, magic flying through the air and snagging his body mid-jump. Draco soared backwards and crashed into the bookshelf at the end of the room, slamming into the floor with a shower of heavy, leather-bound volumes.

   “You think,” seethed Voldemort. “That you can derail destiny, that greatness will bow down to the selfish, small ideas of a teenage boy! You are MINE! Your flesh is now MY flesh!” He blasted Draco with an unknown spell that made him feel like every single one of his joints was being pulled apart, and he screamed like a banshee. “It is MY choice if you live or die, you are merely the vessel now and I will not STAND for this insubordination!”

   “Go to Hell!” roared Draco, spitting blood onto the imaginary replica of his father’s carpet.

   “Oh,” whispered Voldemort, swooping down to hover his face before Draco’s. “Oh, trust me. This is _much_ nicer than Hell.”

   The two stared at each other, grey eyes into red, the moment stretching outwards until Draco’s whole world became just that.

   “Master,” said Bellatrix as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. “It is almost time, you must prepare yourself.”

   “NO!” cried Draco, thrashing out as best he could with his bound limbs. But Voldemort gave his wand a small flick, and Draco was yanked up onto his feet again and dragged unceremoniously across the room. He kicked and flailed, every vulgarity Sirius had ever taught him flying from his mouth, but all that got him was a spell that walloped his head into the desk and a gag wrapped around his mouth.

   He tried in vain to shout through the material, but all that came out were dull moans. Bellatrix smirked. “He has fight in him at least.”

   Voldemort took Draco’s chin between his cold, white fingers. “We had better learn,” he said softly. “To channel that fight in a little more productive a direction, hmm?”

   Draco did his best to slam his head into Voldemort’s snake-like face, but The Dark Lord was too quick for him. “Just one more minute,” Bellatrix cooed, and Draco glared at the sword lying just out of reach on the desk, willing it with all his heart to move towards him, to give him just that extra foot of distance he needed.

   What would stop his heart? What could pierce his flesh? Could he get to the window in time? His shaking legs gave him the answer to that one, but he wouldn’t give up. He rolled and smashed his head again into the solid table leg, pain bursting through his vision and blood spraying down his face.

   Voldemort roared in frustration, grabbed Draco by the scruff of his neck and pointed his wand at his face. “If you could only be unconscious for this,” he muttered, shaking him roughly before taking a slow, long breath. _“Petrificus Totalus,”_ he sighed and stood up, leaving Draco’s rigid body to whack, plank-like, to the floor.

   No, he pleaded with himself. No, this can’t be it, you have to keep going, don’t stop, don’t give in!

   But what could he do?

   Bellatrix was nursing a goblet of steaming liquid. “It’s ready,” she breathed, excitement alight on her face like a child.

   All Draco could move were his eyes, boring hatred at the two people as they rose before him. His voice screamed from behind his clamped shut mouth, and angry tears fell down his face.

   “That’s it my boy,” said Voldemort soothingly. “Just breath, this will all be over-”

   The explosion rocked the entire room.

   Draco yelled mutely as his body was lifted up and thrown against the table leg. Bright light forced him to squeeze his eyes shut, but not before he saw the drinks cabinet shattering, the volumes and volumes of books flying from the shelves, and Voldemort and Bellatrix blasted from their feet, tossed into the corners of the room. Smoke filled his vision, as he rolled, the full body-bind still intact, and the desk finally buckled after the amount of times he’d been thrown into it. The front legs collapsed, along with the right hand corner, and the solid surface crashed forward over Draco’s body. He had no way to shield himself, but for once his luck held out and the edge of the wood slammed into the carpet, making a triangle around him with the still-intact back legs. His head was poking out the end of the table wreck, but he was on his back, so all he could see was the ceiling.

   “Oh, I’m sorry?” said a cheerful Irish lilt. “Are we late for the tea party?”

   Draco heard Bellatrix screech, but a spell was already firing though the air, several spells in fact, and her body flew backwards again with a painful-sounding thump. Draco found himself hit by the warm, immensely relieving sensation of the body-bind anti-jinx, and another that unravelled the ropes from his wrists.

He didn’t know how or why, he didn’t care. In a flash he was leaping to his feet, reaching for the sword he knew must have slid from the desktop when it had collapsed, but even as he saw the gleaming hilt through the clearing smoke it jumped up into the air of its own accord and tried to speed away from him.

   “No!” he shouted, lurching for it, grabbing on instinct with his right hand. Wrapping his broken fingers around the handle. He screamed and was only able to slap the sword, causing it to spin mid-air, and as he grabbed the wrist of the injured hand to try and stem the pain, his eyes followed the twirling blade as if in slow motion.

   Through the smoke came a hand, seizing the hilt as Draco hadn’t been able to do himself, snapping it upwards. Draco choked on the smoke as he inhaled sharply, stumbling backwards as a figure advanced through the ether. There was someone shouting out, but Draco couldn’t make out the words, his head was spinning dangerously. Why wasn’t Godric’s sword burning this person’s hand?

   And then he got his answer.

   “Draco what are you doing!” scalded Hermione Granger in a panicked voice. She appeared suddenly through the smoke, thrusting the sword back at him. “How could you lose your sword, are you alright, oh what have they _done_ to you!”

   He had no words for the joy he felt. She was fine, her wound was gone, she was healthy and alive. He grabbed the sword in his left hand and made to pull her to him, but Bellatrix wailed again and lunged out of the smoke towards them.

   _“Sectumsempra!”_ Draco bellowed as Hermione cried _“Stupefy!”_

   But Bellatrix wasn’t Voldemort’s right hand woman for nothing. She threw up a shield charm in a blink of an eye, firing back at them with her favourite torture curse.

   _“Crucio!”_

   Hermione shoved Draco’s tired broken body out the way and took the full hit of it, jerking to the floor and crying out.

   _“NO!”_ roared Draco, back on his feet in a second and charging for his aunt. The smoke in the room had all but cleared, with Voldemort nowhere to be seen. But another body was throwing itself toward the Rhansyk over the littering of books and glass covering the study floor.

   “Get BACK you HAG!” yelled Seamus Finnigan, blasting at Bellatrix, distracting her as Draco got his footing and aimed his wand within the Sword of Gryffindor at Bellatrix Lestrange one last time.

   _“SECTUMSEMPRA!”_ he screamed, and this time she had no time to defend herself from his slashing spell.

   A great red gash split her body upwards, blood and dust flying everywhere. She howled as her stitches ripped open noisily, and in mere seconds her body unravelled and fell in scraps and clumps to the ground.

   Draco staggered in shock, but it didn’t take him long to regain his senses. “Hermione!” he cried, spinning round to find her pushing herself off the floor. “Why did you do that, are you hurt!”

   “I’m fine,” she gasped as he seized her arms and yanked her into the fiercest hug he’d ever given anyone in his life. “Draco I’m fine!” she squeaked, and he let her go sheepishly.

   “Where did you-” he began to ask, when his eyes fell on an open trap door that had appeared in the middle of the carpet.

   “No time!” urged Seamus, looking round frantically but Voldemort was long gone. “You have to stop him, we have to find him!”

   Draco couldn’t help it. He took a step towards the door, then crumpled backwards against the broken desk and Seamus’ straining arms, his vision and legs both giving way.

   “He’s hurt,” said Hermione as they tried to prop him up. “Oh what did they _do_ to you?”

   “Bellatrix,” breathed Draco as Seamus looked him over.

   _“Episkey,”_ said the young Watcher, and Draco’s skin suddenly felt cool and tingly, and he gasped in relief. Seamus gently took his hand and inspected the broken fingers. “I can’t mend them,” he said honestly. “But I can give you a pain killer and set the bones?”

   “Do it,” grunted Draco, his jaw set in anticipation. “Where’d you come from? What happened to Voldemort?”

   _“Ferula,”_ said Seamus, conjuring a splint and a bandage for his two broken fingers. Draco hissed but once it was on he felt much better.   “We came from Alex’s house, him and Hermione had managed to heal, and that noisy dragon came to tell us where you were.”

   “Puff?” said Draco in surprise. “Puff…came to you, to help us?”

   “He demanded more treasure before he told us the location,” explained Hermione. Well that made more sense, thought Draco.

   “When we got to the grounds, Alex and I could tell you two had split up,” Seamus continued. “The others went to find Harry and we came here.”

   Draco wrapped his hand gingerly around the sword hilt, it was painful but he could bare it. So he clutched the edge of what remained of his father’s desk with his free hand, heaved himself upwards, and surveyed the ransacked room. “Voldemort will be long gone by now,” he said ruefully.

   But Seamus shook his head and followed Draco as he walked swiftly out the door, heading back down the way Bellatrix had dragged him. “Not necessarily,” said the Watcher hurriedly. “He tried to apparate, but he couldn’t. I managed to hit him a couple of times with some curses, but they didn’t do much, and by then he’d given up trying to teleport and just ran for it. I went to chase him but it seemed like saving your behinds from crazy witch lady was the better course of action.”

   Hermione nodded enthusiastically.

   Draco frowned in thought. “You can’t apparate inside the Manor,” he reasoned out loud. “Maybe that’s still the case in the Limbo version too. In which case-”

   “He wouldn’t have got far,” supplied Seamus.

   Hermione raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth as if to ask for further explanation, but Draco cut her off.

   “But it doesn’t matter,” he said, testing the weight of the sword as he held it in both hands, then just the damaged one. They were racing down the stairs, and Draco became aware that the familiar pulling sensation was back in his gut. Now he was getting blood pumping through his legs again they were feeling much better. “If his Horcrux is still intact I can’t fight him, I won’t be any match for him.”

   He looked over his shoulder to see Seamus and Hermione grinning at each other.

   “Turns out,” said the Watcher. “That this Ron Weasley fellow is a tough, crafty little chap.”

   “Ron?” Draco said, suddenly coming to a halt. “Are you saying-” he began, hope blossoming in his chest for the first time in hours.

   “He killed it dead,” said Hermione. “Stabbed it right through the heart with a magic, flaming axe.”

   “And with Voldemort’s Horcrux gone,” Seamus clarified, in case Draco hadn’t grasped it. “He no longer has his anchor to the real world.”

   Draco looked at the two people standing before him. “Then what we waiting for?” he asked, a grin spreading across his dry, cracked lips. “Let’s go end this, once and for all.”

   Without question, he followed his gut this time, running through the jumbled up version of his house.   They’d only been moving a minute or so when a sound rumbled down the corridor. “What was that?” cried Hermione suddenly, her head snapping back the way they’d come. It could have been another explosion, but Draco couldn’t pay it any attention.

   “It’s not Voldemort,” he said with utmost confidence. “I think we’re connected, I can feel him and he’s this way, so whatever that was, it wasn’t him.”

   “What do you mean you can feel him?” asked Hermione as they sped down another corridor. The left hand side was lined with tall windows that looked out over the grounds, but it was too dark and the snow too thick to see much at a glance, which was all Draco was able to spare. His body may have been healed by Seamus’ magic but it was still screaming at him from exhaustion and muscle ache. “Was that how you got to this place?” Hermione continued. “What happened after we left you on the mountain? Puff said something about Vikings and London-”

   “Yes, all that,” Draco breathed. “Long story, there were Rhansyk chasing us but when Puff killed the last of them we suddenly here, and Harry and I could feel this pull, it’s why we split up.”

   “What-” said Hermione, but Seamus beat her to it.

   “More Rhansyk?”

   “A lot more,” Draco replied darkly. “There have been things trying to kill us and rob us and kidnap us ever since…hang on.” He slowed to a stop and took in his companions. “You have to go,” he said.

   Hermione frowned at him. “Go where?”

   “Away, anywhere,” said Draco. “It’s too dangerous around me.”

   “Are you crazy!” cried Hermione.

   “We just got here!” said Seamus crossly. “We saved your life – for which I didn’t hear a thank you I might add.”

   Draco waved his injured hand. “Thank you, you were amazing, I was about to off myself, this way was much-”

   “You WHAT!” shouted Hermione. “Kill yourself!”

   Draco pressed his lips together, angry he had let that slip. “It was better that than Voldemort take my body to rule all the Multiverses with,” said Draco heavily, dropping his eyes to avoid her hurt gaze.

   When neither of them replied he looked up again to see their astonishment.   “Oh,” said Seamus, irritation and confusion crossing his face. “Oh yeah, well that would make a lot more sense than destroying Limbo, wouldn’t it Seamus? Idiot.”

   “He wanted to possess me,” said Draco. “To get into any reality he wanted. And he still will if he can. Which is why you guys can’t come, he’ll use you against me, it’s too dangerous I can’t risk it.”

   “I am not leaving you alone-” Hermione started hotly, but Draco stepped forward and took her face with his bad hand, leaving the sword in the good one.

   “And I can’t live without you,” he said his voice raw with emotion. “If anything happened to you, I’d never forgive myself.”

   “Ooh-kay,” said Seamus, swinging his foot and looking up at the ceiling. “Still not getting used to that.”

   “Well how do you think I feel?” snapped Hermione, shaking Draco’s hand away. “It was because of me we had to leave you two _alone!_ We abandoned you, you got chased and tortured and now you’re saying Voldemort wants your body so he can become some inter-dimensional overlord!”

   “You got stabbed,” said Draco incredulously. “I never wanted you here, I wanted you safe!”

   “And how do think I could live with myself if I ran away now I’m all healed again?” she retorted.

   “Guys!” said Seamus. “Whatever we do we can’t stop moving, we have to stop Voldemort before he disappears into the depths of Limbo!”

   “He’ll still think he has a chance to possess me,” said Draco confidently. “He won’t go far, and he still thinks he has the Horcrux protecting him, he told me so himself.” He turned back to Hermione who looked torn between fury and despair. “I can fight him, please, don’t give him something he can use against me.”

   “I can help,” she insisted. “He won’t use me-”

   Draco stepped up close to her, the words catching in his throat. “I’d let him take the whole Multiverse, if it meant protecting you.”

   Hermione stared at him for a second. “Right,” she said, flustered. “Right, okay, but-”

   Seamus took her hand. “We have to go,” he said. “Draco’s right, we can’t give Voldemort any leverage.”

   “But what if that doesn’t work?” Hermione demanded, stress making her voice crack as she looked between Seamus and Draco. “What if you were wrong, like how you thought the Voldemorts were trying to destroy everything when that wasn’t their plan at all?”

   Seamus looked like his temper flared, but he was clearly mad at himself, or maybe Alex, not Hermione. “Trust me,” he said, putting his hand on Draco’s shoulder so he was holding them both. “We were wrong about guessing his intentions, we didn’t think about them taking your bodies back into the real worlds, it’s so obvious,” he spat. “It just never occurred to us. But this is magic theory, fact. The Horcrux that you created and that then pulled Voldemort across into Limbo is dead and your power will now be vastly superior.”

   Draco nodded and looked at Hermione. “I’ll be okay, I promise.”

   She looked furious and tears were pooling in her eyes, but she shook herself and stepped over to kiss his check. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll go help the others, but you have to promise me-”

   Draco leant forward and stopped her with a heartfelt kiss on the lips. “I love you,” he said. “And I am coming back.”

   “Time to go!” shouted Seamus, dragging Hermione away. “People to save and kill and all that stuff!”

   “Wait!” shouted Draco, a thought occurring to him. “What about Harry’s Horcrux?”

   Seamus’ grim look told him all he need to know.

   “Go help him,” rasped Draco, and with that he turned away from his rescuers and ran after the man he was now determined to destroy.

   The house was quiet but Draco could almost feel the vibrations through the walls and floor from all the activity around him. Was it the Watchers in the ballroom? Or whatever had caused that other explosion? Were they friend or foe? Who was in his house?

   For just one second Draco considered turning around and finding Hermione again. He had been so overwhelmed to see her just at the moment he’d been prepared to take his own life, he’d not said so many of the things he’d needed to say. At least he’d told her he loved her, if all else fell away from him, at least they had that.

   A spike of tension in his guts brought him back to the here and now. Thanks to the bizarre layout of the house, he now found himself on the first floor landing of the East Wing, a place he should have been far away from. He slowed and looked around; up and down the stairs, back along the corridor he’d just run, out the windows into the night. There were several closed doors leading off the hallway, but they weren’t what caught his eye.

   Hanging on the wall was a singular, large portrait. Apart from his father’s study, this version of Malfoy Manor had been completely devoid of decorations up until this point, but that wasn’t all that caught Draco’s attention. The painting was of his mother, sitting on a bench by a stream and an oak tree, looking sadly out into the pale blue sky.

   It was no painting he had ever seen before, but even if he had, after Bellatrix’s little stunt earlier this would have been enough to automatically raise all of Draco’s suspicions. He tried to calm his breathing so he could hear for any sounds that might alert him to someone sneaking up, but there was nothing.

   Narcissa turned and looked forlornly out of the picture frame. _“Help me,”_ she said in a sad, echoy voice.

   Draco smirked. “Not this time mum,” he said flatly, and turned to walk away.

   It was like he felt the spell coming before it hit. Just for a split second, the air around him electrified, and he was able to swing around, crying _“Protego!”_ just as an unseen voice yelled _“Expelliarmus!”_

   Draco got his shield up in time and levelled the sword in the direction of where he thought his attacker had been. “Well,” said Voldemort, stepping out of thin air like he’d been hidden behind a curtain. “This is interesting.”

   “I’d have gone with tedious,” snarled Draco. “What, you thought my dead mother would distract me again?”

   “Enough for the painting to ensnare you and enable my approach,” admitted Voldemort with what could have passed as a shrug. “Yes. It appears Godric’s play toy has heightened your senses though.” He smiled, half silhouetted by the moonlight coming through the window. “It will make no difference soon enough.”

   Draco grinned. He was sure he looked demented. “That’s what you think – _Confringo!”_

   Voldemort made to swat the fire from Draco’s wand aside lazily, but it shot through the air and exploded his robes into flames. The Dark Lord cried out in rage and cast a counter spell, banishing the fire to leave smouldering remains, then glared at Draco. “How-” he barked, but Draco didn’t give him a chance, he blasted him again and again. This time Voldemort was able to give a more effective defence, but Draco was still knocking him backwards, glancing him with hexes, aiming with precision.

   It seemed like Voldemort was still too confused to think about fighting back. “HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS!” he roared, looking between his wand and Draco’s embedded in the sword.

   “Fight back!” yelled Draco, not bothering to explain about the Horcrux. He would leave Voldemort completely unaware if he could manage it. He lunged, shouting _“Expulso!”_ as he thrust with the blade.

   Voldemort finally realised he was facing a genuine opponent, his face thunderous as he charged across the landing, spells flying from his wand.

   Draco parried with the sword, deflecting the magic until the two physically clashed. “What are these powers Godric has given you!” screamed the Dark Lord, pushing him back, but not by much. He conjured up his own blade from thin air, twisting it into existence in an arched motion that he brought slamming down onto the Sword of Gryffindor.

   Draco felt the familiar stances forming in his legs, the moves he had practiced for hours since childhood. His muscles were tired but these were actions they knew almost as well as walking. He slashed and swiped with the sword, clashing with Voldemort’s in a blur of movement. “Godric just gave me the sword,” grunted Draco, sweat beading on his forehead. Voldemort tried firing another spell, one to bind and disarm him, but Draco’s shield charm was still strong from before. “You can thank a boy called Ron for your impending demise.”

   Draco actually managed a wink, which, combined with the fact that Voldemort evidently had no idea who ‘Ron’ was, made the Dark Lord roar like a caged animal. “You will be my vessel!” he screamed, thrashing with his wicked sharp sword. He was not as skilled technically as Draco that was easy to tell, but Draco was tired and hurting, which Voldemort obviously was not. “This is our DESTINY! You will bow down, the whole universe will BOW!”

   Draco wasn’t quick enough and the blade caught his left shoulder, slicing through his t-shirt and bringing a slash of red blood to his skin. He cried out and spun away, further into the landing, and the two began circling each other.

   “I will never help you,” he growled as Voldemort watched him like a cat waiting to pounce. “Never again. I will _destroy_ you!” He leapt, the worst spell he could think of tearing from his mouth. _“AVADA KEDAVRA!”_

   Voldemort blocked him, but the spell still knocked him to his feet. Draco ran for him, sword raised and a deep, animalistic sound roaring from his throat. Voldemort rolled as the blade came down, his movements fluid and lightening fast. Draco had always seen him as a tranquil man, deadly in his stillness, liked a snake coiled in the shade, poised to attack. This man had now become wild, feral, fury fuelling his scrambling motions. Draco might have enjoyed the humiliation of it if he wasn’t fighting with every breath to stay standing upright.

   Voldemort seemed to sense his weakness too, and grinning leapt to his feet again as Draco struggled up from his failed attack. Voldemort blasted him with several exotic curses, and although Draco’s shield was still holding out he felt each one hit with the force of a fist.

   “Give up this foolish pursuit Draco,” said Voldemort as Draco shook himself and fired back. Voldemort parried the spells, only the Conjunctivitus Curse hitting true, causing the Dark Lord to stagger and grab his red eyes in pain. Draco managed to charge forward across the landing a few steps.

   _“Sectumsempra!”_ he yelled again, hoping his slashing spell would be even more effective coming from a wand within an actual sword, and indeed Voldemort’s robes slashed open and splashed blood out in a cascade of red droplets. But as Draco drew breath to cast the fatal curse, Voldemort beat him to it.

   _“Crucio!”_ he cried, one hand still squeezing his painful eyes. _“Impedimenta!”_

   The pain hit Draco a second before the jinx. He screamed out, his body buckling before he tripped and spun backwards, slipping over the edge of the staircase, missing the first couple of steps, then crashing down the rest of the flight. He screamed out again as the sword sliced through his jeans and cut into the flesh of his thigh, before finally he came to a halt on the next landing. He gasped for air, trying to get his wits about him.

   _“Accio sword,”_ came Voldemort’s cold voice from up above, but Draco clung to the hilt with both hands, ripping it free from the summoning charm. His body may have been failing him, but the power from the destroyed Horcrux was not. He still had an advantage over Voldemort.

   “Enough,” came his voice as he hovered at the top of the stairs, his robes a foot off the ground as he started gliding down the steps. He must have managed to fix his curses as he was no longer holding his eyes and the slash in his torso was gone. “We will head back to the study and complete Bellatrix’s spell.”

   _“Episkey,”_ breathed Draco, _“Protego.”_ He healed his leg and jumped to his feet, his shield charm rejuvenated. “Good luck with that,” he said, shooting another round of spells up the staircase. “I gutted her like a fish.”

   He expected Voldemort to react to this news, despite fending off his attacks, but as he bent and weaved, countering the magic he merely looked annoyed.

   “She completed the potion, we shall still be joined as one.”

   He reached the landing and Draco hit him head on, his own healing spell having renewed his energy a little. “You don’t care at all, do you!” he cried as his sword clashed with Voldemort’s again. He couldn’t help but feel a little indignation on his aunt’s behalf. She may have been evil and crazy as a loon, but this man she worshiped had no grief for her, not an ounce.

   “And that is your weakness,” grunted Voldemort, correctly reading Draco’s mind. They were moving down the new corridor, each blow pushing Draco backwards, though he hadn’t yet let another one cut his flesh. “You care _so_ much. Your love will be your downfall.” Draco ducked and managed to aim another explosive spell, finally pushing Voldemort away from him just a few feet.

   “You don’t know a thing about love,” he spat, using his momentary advantage to attack again, and again.

   “I know it weakens the mind and divides loyalties,” said Voldemort, grimacing and panting as Draco bore down on him. “I know the first thing we are going to do once we are joined will _not_ be to step into another world, but to find that Mudblood here in Limbo that you hold so dear in your heart.”

   Draco’s insides ran cold like ice, and he paused for just a second, allowing Voldemort to land a painful blow that knocked his knees out from under him. “NO!” he bellowed, rolling out of the way as the Imperius Curse came flying through the air. Power exploded in his guts as he ran head on at Voldemort, rage filling his veins as his sword lashed and stabbed. This was what he had feared, this is why he had sent her away.

   The two swords slammed together over and over in a hail of clangs, but Draco was gaining ground, pushing Voldemort backwards toward the landing again. The Dark Lord was still trying to grin, but Draco could see the fear in his eyes. He had healed the slash from the Sectumsempra curse, but only so much and it was ripping anew, slowing his movements. “Yes,” he hissed, despite his wounds, spitting with vehemence. “This is what I will do for you, in thanks for this defiance. When we are one, we will take her apart, piece by piece. Then in every world we travel to we will find her and we will do it again and again. I will never let your torment end until she is completely irradiated, her bones scattered at your feet!”

   If he had been hoping to weaken Draco with fear or anger, he was sadly mistaken. Draco’s purpose became singular, his thoughts calm and clear. The walls, the floor, the torches dimly lighting their surrounding, they all vanished into darkness, and all Draco could see was the Sword of Gryffindor and the white skin of The Dark Lord Voldemort.

   He wasted no energy in replying, in telling Voldemort his end was near, he just thrashed and volleyed, ducked and jumped, until they were back into the open space.

   He sensed movement on the stairs, and that was all it took. His eyes flicked for less than a second, unable to take in all the people running towards him, but Voldemort was in, aiming a spell not at Draco, but at the Sword of Gryffindor. _“Frangius!”_ he cried in triumph, and Draco stumbled back as the blade shattered into a dozen pieces and sent his wand flying through the air.

   “NO!” someone bellowed as Draco’s eyes flicked back to Voldemort, just in time for his blade to stab into Draco’s belly, slicing clean through and out the other side.

   Screams filled the air as pain and shock flew up Draco’s body. But his hand was still wrapped around the hilt of what remained of his sword, a jagged nub, maybe only a foot long.

   It was enough though.

   With Voldemort’s sword still in his belly, Draco pulled his serrated shaft back, then thrust it with all his might under Voldemort’s chin, slamming it up into his head.

   The Dark Lord gagged, blood bubbling at his mouth as his eyes went dead. The screams around them reached a whole new level, but to Draco they seemed a million miles away.

   Voldemort slowly let go of his hilt, and crumpled to the floor, his life force vanishing before he even hit the carpet. Draco felt the corner of his mouth tug. Then he looked down at the sword sticking through him, the blood pouring, the pain far worse than any curse Bellatrix had forced upon him.

   “Oh,” he said, his hand dropping the remains of Godric’s sword, then touching the hilt of the one Voldemort had left him. “Dear.” His eyes fluttered closed, and he dropped to the ground, a chorus of voices shouting his name as he slipped into the darkness.

 

***

 

   Harry stared at the three men standing above him. Alex was the first of them to move, the grin still broad on his face. “Harry!” he cried, in a reassuring manner. “Harry, it’s okay, are you alright?” he dropped before him as Puff scampered from his lap to go sit by the side of the door, delight on his mean little face.

   The Watchers were a rabble of noise and movement. Some were comforting each other, some were still kicking and shouting at the now defunct clockwork dancers. Most though, were running for the door.

   “Merlin, thank you!” cried the first as he ran past grabbing the small man’s hand. The next few through did likewise, and they each dashed for one of the doors lining the corridor to the right where Harry had just come from.

   “Harry?” asked Alex, his tone worried, but Harry just watched as the doors were all opened in quick succession by the Watchers, each leading to a different looking room.

   “Wha-” said Harry, as more of the Watchers pushed past them, forming queues outside the six doorways. As soon as each swung such, the next Watcher grabbed the handle, closed their eyes for a few seconds, then opened the same door onto a completely different room or corridor to what Harry had seen before.

   “What’s going on?” he managed.

   A hand was offered, and he took it to stand to his feet. “That’s what we’d like to know,” said Godric Gryffindor. He stepped backwards, into the corridor and to the left, away from the frenzy to reach the half a dozen doorways. Harry glanced back into the ballroom, trying and failing to guess how many Watchers there were. Thousands perhaps?

   “Harry,” said Alex, taking him by the shoulders and looking him over. “What’s happened?”

   The concern in his voice brought Harry back to the here and now. He shook his head. “You’re okay!” he cried, returning Alex’s grip on his shoulders. “You’re healed – Hermione!   Is she okay too?”

   Alex broke free and waved a hand. “Yes, fine,” he said dismissively, as if they hadn’t been mortally wounded on the mountainside. “She and Seamus went to find Draco. You, I’m asking what’s happened to you!”

   The stream of Watchers seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. People and creatures were going through the doors as fast as possible, but sometimes they were too hasty and opened their door onto the room it had previously just shown, causing the Watcher to cry out in anger or frustration, close the door once more and wait again for a few more seconds with their eyes shut.

   “They’re going home, back to their worlds, aren’t they?” said Harry, turning to Merlin who was watching the procedure with a tired sort of detachment.

   Godric moved to stand in front of Harry, and only when Harry raised his eyes did he see the grim determination. “Where did you go?” he asked in his East London accent. “After we left Harry? We need to know.”

   Harry blinked. He thought maybe he was feeling a bit of shock, he was struggling to focus. “Er, we were in the wasteland, then the Bellatrixes showed up and we were in a forest with some Rhansyk, then there were these Vikings.”

   Alex scoffed and Godric shot him a look. “What happened when you got here?” said the founder of Gryffindor house. “Puff came and got us, but then went on ahead, said there was something wrong.”

   Harry threw up his hands. “Well it’s _all_ wrong!” he said, glaring at Puff as he used his sharp claw to pick his even sharper teeth. “Draco and I both felt a – I don’t know – it was like a pulling sensation, we split up. We thought the Voldemorts might be here, and we were right. Well,” he swallowed, thinking of the graveyard. “Mine was anyway.”

   “There, that’s him!” a woman screeched coming at Harry from the crowd with a broom. She was a haggard looking crone with a mean mouth and an even meaner swing that she used to swipe the bristles over Harry’s head.

   “Adelaide!” shouted Alex, seizing the broom. “Don’t – where did you even get this from?”

   “Sorry, sorry,” said another woman, pushing out of the throng after Adelaide. She was blonde and dressed entirely in purple, from her impressive bustled floor length dress to her leather gloves, feathered hat, frilled umbrella and heeled boots. Her accent was the Queen’s English, much like Alex’s. “No,” she said, coming to a halt. “No, that’s not Seamus’ boy, that’s Alex’s, isn’t it?”

   Alex nodded as the older woman scowled. “Don’t matter,” she squawked in a strong American accent, poking first Harry then Alex squarely on the chest. “Whatchoo do to mah universe!” Adelaide wore a heavy, frayed brown skirt with splotched cream apron, loose fitting blouse and jacket, and a mottle cream bonnet on her head. Most Watchers looked immaculate and beautiful Harry had come to realise. This woman looked like she’d taken on the world and won, but perhaps needed a rather long nap to recuperate.

   “Adelaide this isn’t the time,” said Alex sternly. “I’m sorry, I really am, but we’ll get Ron out of your universe just as fast as we can.”

   “Wait, what?” asked Harry. “Ron? Are you the Watcher of the world where Ron went?”

   “Yes,” said Alex dismissively. “Effie, please take her aside, there are bigger matters at stake.”

   “Come along dear,” said the woman in purple, Effie, taking Adelaide’s shoulders under her arm. “Let the men talk themselves out, then we shall sort out this nonsense.”

   Alex had his fingers pressed against his temples, his eyes closed. “No, no,” he murmured softly. “How could this have happened, how could I have been so stupid?”

   Godric was by one of the windows looking down onto the grounds. “We need to speed this up,” he said, his tone dark. “It’s getting messy down there.”

   Alex was patting Harry’s arms again. “What happened, tell me precisely.”

   Harry could feel his heart thrumming in his chest. “Voldemort got me,” he said, cutting to the chase. “He had this spell, they were doing a ritual, made me breath something in. I blacked out and Puff woke me up, but I was the other side of the graveyard. Voldemort must have used some Polyjuice potion or something, because he looks like me now.”

   Alex stepped backwards, horror on his face, and he dropped his head into his hands. “Bugger,” said Godric from over by the window, his face furious.

   “What?” said Harry, looking between the two men. “It’s no big deal, I mean it freaked me out but I’m fine, you saved me and all the Watchers from those...things, so now we can find Draco, get back to Voldemort-”

   “Yes,” said Alex, dropping his hands, nodding his head and walking back to Harry, his finger pointed. “He’s right, there’s still hope. We can reverse this.”

   “Not,” said Merlin, speaking for the first time and turning away from the loud, anxious mass of Watchers frantically queuing to get to the six doors. “If Voldemort gets that portal open first. If he walks through, no one can follow, and there’s no telling the damage he could do before he decides to come back.”

   “Yes,” said Harry, waving a finger and feeling like he was catching up in the conversation. “Puff said they were talking about a portal, that it would take a while to open. What does that mean, where are they going?”

   But another Watcher broke free of the crowd, catching Harry’s attention immediately. He was black, in his thirties, wearing corduroys, a white shirt and brown waistcoat with a trilby hat perched on his head. His face was crumpled in distress and he made a beeline for Harry.

   “No,” said Effie in the moment in took him to reach Harry as everyone else turned around. “No, Geoffrey don’t-”

   The man slapped Harry hard around the face. Alex and Effie both roared and leapt for him, leaving Harry to stagger upright again and hold his cheek in shock. “I wasn’t there!” the man cried in a strong Jamaican accent. “You sent him here, but he went home again, I thought he was safe! But then he came back through the veil! I could have stopped him, before it was too late, but I couldn’t get free, I was in that dancing _prison!”_

   Tears were streaming down his face as Merlin rested a hand on his shoulder, steering him away from Alex and Effie, escorting him silently to the front of one of the queues and, despite several loud protests, let him be the next to go through the door, his shoulders shaking in grief.

   “Okay,” said Harry losing his temper. “That’s it, _what_ is going on here! What did Voldemort do to me, why are these Watchers all mad at me, what were they doing with those dancers and _where_ is Draco!”

   Merlin inhaled and glared at Harry. “The Voldemorts took them prisoner, so they could not guide their worlds, and Geoffrey and Adelaide have felt this most keenly, as theirs were the worlds affected by you and your friends swapping dimensions.”

   “Oh,” said Harry, looking over at Adelaide, who had managed to get her broom back and was holding it menacingly.

   “We’re not sure about Draco,” said Alex heavily. “Seamus will hopefully have found him by now. As for what Voldemort did to you...”

   “He doesn’t look like you,” said Merlin.

   “Yes he does!” cried Harry. “Puff, tell them! He looks just like me!”

   “He does not look like you,” said Merlin firmly, his mouth set in a line. “He _is_ you.”

   Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again. “What are you talking about?” he said once he found his voice. _“I’m_ me, he just-”

   “How’s your shoulder Harry?” asked Godric, and Alex gave a shuddery sigh and turned away. Harry looked down at his right shoulder, the one he had dislocated.

   “It’s better I guess, how did you know I hurt it?”

   “You keep rolling it,” said Godric, opening the window. “Touching it like you expect it to hurt, but it doesn’t.” He jumped up on the ledge. “I have to go, Alex?”

   Harry’s Watcher turned again, his face dropping as he took in what Godric was doing.

   “Good luck,” said Godric, a twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and he jumped.

   “No!” cried Harry, darting forwards and throwing his head out of the window. But underneath the ledge a great black dragon with a golden underbelly was waiting and Godric had landed squarely on his back, a saddle and reigns already in place on the beast. Godric gave a wave, then steered the dragon away from the Manor.

   It was then Harry was able to take in the rest of the dark, snowy grounds of the estate.

   It had become a battlefield.

   Rhansyk had appeared in their droves, joining the few that Voldemort had had with him in the graveyard. But fighting them were dozens and dozens of Roman soldiers, assisted by-

   “Those are the Vikings that tried to sell us!” said Harry indignantly. He knew that shouldn’t have been the most pressing matter at hand, but it just flew out of his mouth.

   “Godric offered to pay them double,” said Alex crossly, pulling Harry back inside and slamming the window shut.

   “Why is there a battle going on down there!” demanded Harry. “Where did they all come from, where were they half an hour ago! And _what,”_ he snarled for what he hoped would be the last time. “has Voldemort _done_ to me!”

   “He’s taken your body,” said Merlin. The Watchers were still eagerly filtering past, but some were craning their necks, trying to catch what was going on.

   “My?” said Harry, looking down at himself, looking at the wand that had appeared back in his hand. “No,” he said feebly, but icy doubt was creeping up inside his guts.

   “I should have known,” said Alex miserably. “It’s so obvious.”

   “He needs your physical, real body,” said Merlin, stepping closer to Harry. “So he can step between universes.”

   Harry blinked and shook his head. “But, you said he was trying to destroy Limbo, destroy the Multiverse?”

   “I was wrong,” said Alex in a small voice, his eyes downcast.

   Effie stepped forward from where she had been subtly restraining Adelaide. “Well, you weren’t entirely wrong, they _have_ been dragging Limbo down to its knees, and without the Watchers protection, it will only be a matter of time before the universes start falling apart.” She looked Harry up and down. “I’m so glad my world doesn’t have one of you, or any magic for that matter. Always makes such a _mess_ of everything.”

   Harry staggered backwards. “So, you’re telling me I’m not alive any more, that I’m, what? Just a soul?”

   “Only until we get you back in your body,” Alex reassured him.

   “If,” spat Harry, raising his eyebrows. _“If_ we can get me back. And if we can’t, Voldemort is going to use my body to invade whatever world he wants?”

   “They both are,” came another voice, causing the group to spin around. Seamus and Hermione were running up the corridor, both stricken looking.

   “Hermione!” cried Harry. He knew Alex had said she was okay too, but he still couldn’t help the immense relief at seeing her for himself, and threw his arms around her as they skidded to a halt. “You’re all better?”

   She pulled a face. “I’m not injured anymore,” she said. “If that’s what you mean.” She was ghostly pale and worry lined her face.

   “Didn’t you find Draco?” asked Alex, but Seamus shook his head.

   “Yes,” he said confusingly. “But he made us leave. He’s still in his own body, but Ron destroyed his Horcrux, so he wanted to take on Voldemort without any risk he would use us to force Draco into the switch.”

   “Use me, you mean,” said Hermione angrily.

   “You left him!” said Harry. “No, no we have to go back, take us now!” He let go of Hermione and started moving down the corridor, but Alex grabbed his arm.

   “Draco’s right,” he said. “If we give Voldemort a chance he’ll use someone he cares about to force the switch. Alone he now has the window of opportunity to end his half of this battle, once and for all.”

   Harry shrugged his Watcher’s hand off angrily. “If what you’re saying is true,” he said, the enormity of it all still not really sinking in. “He can’t possibly do any worse to me. I’ll go alone if I have to.”

   “Me too!” snapped Hermione ferociously. “Even if we just scout back to see if he’s okay.”

   Harry nodded. “Good idea,” he said, already stepping a few feet down the corridor. “Puff you coming?” he shouted out to the dragon still loitering in the ballroom.

   “Erm,” replied the dragon, sauntering around the corner, his face set in an expression of petulance. “Have I been paid yet?”

   Harry blinked, then looked at Alex. “No,” admitted the Watcher with a sigh.

   “Then _I_ go wherever _fancypants_ goes, until I do!” The little red dragon stuck his nose in the air and trotted up ahead.

   “I think he means you,” said Seamus nodding at Alex as he followed. “C’mon boy scouts, let’s go take a look and _only_ if it’s safe, we can help Draco.”

   “Wait!” snapped Alex. “Wait, just wait.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and hopped about in his pirate boots. “We should stick together, Merlin will you stay here with the Watchers?”

   “Oh don’t be ridiculous,” laughed Effie, sashaying forwards waving a hand. “The most powerful magician of all time should not be childminding a group of perfectly capable immortals like lost sheep. Go, be gone with you all. Adi and I will man the doors, figuratively speaking.”

     Merlin raised an eyebrow as several Watchers peered over their shoulders to listen better. Adelaide jerked her broomstick at them and they jumped back into line.

   “See?” said Effie smugly. “Anyway, I have already had a raven, my world is ticking along just fine. Adi won’t want to leave until you have fixed all your mistakes, so I will stay and chaperone. Besides,” she fluffed up her spiralling, glossy hair. “This is the most adventure I have had in years, I shall not be letting you chaps have all the fun.”

   Harry had a word or two to say on what this woman considered fun, but instead he just nodded grimly and spun on his heels, Hermione right beside him. He was still seething at himself that he’d allow Draco to split them up when it had so obviously been a trap, and now to hear he’d made Hermione and Seamus leave him too? Did he have a death wish for crying out loud?

   Harry came to a stairwell and turned to ask for direction. “Which way Hermione?”

   But she had already overtaken him, heading left. “This way,” she said. Harry knew his Hermione had never been one for sport, and this one was already wheezing too from all the exertion. But the determined glint in her eye was one Harry had long ago learnt not to argue with.   “I should _never_ have left him.”

   “You and me both,” he replied, catching up with her and managing to squeeze her hand. She looked back at him, her breathing deep and sweat beading on her brow. The shared glance was only for a moment, but they both knew what it meant.

   “How far?” Harry asked as they raced along yet another blank corridor. Did Draco’s family really live in this place in the real world?

   “Not far,” panted Seamus as Puff darted between Harry’s legs. “We left him somewhere-”

   Hermione suddenly stopped as they rounded onto a flight of steps, her hands grabbing her hair as she gasped.

   Two figures were duelling, swords flashing in a blaze of silver, emerging from the shadowy corridor into the landing below.

   Draco’s eyes flicked up to the faltering group, and Harry shouted “NO!”, but it was too late. Voldemort used the spit second advantage, and before his eyes the Sword of Gryffindor exploded in a shower of metal shards that flung through the air. Harry threw his arms over his face and ducked, but he still felt several sharp stings as the fragments struck his body.

   He heard a scream, an unintelligible sound, that brought his head back out from under his arms. He could only have turned away for a second or two, but what he saw when he looked back stilled his heart.

   Voldemort, having destroyed Draco’s weapon, had plunged his own right through Draco’s torso. Hermione had been the one to scream, and Seamus was half holding her up, and half holding her back as the blood streamed down Draco’s jeans and hit the carpeted floor. But he wasn’t done in for yet. In the second Harry took to absorb the sight before him, Draco inhaled and glanced down at the few inches of jagged sword he had left in his hand, before swinging his whole arm upwards, driving it into Voldemort’s skull through his jaw.

   At that moment, Harry felt like the whole world swum under his feet. He grabbed the stair rail to steady himself, but Hermione had already torn free of Seamus’ grip and was running forward.

   Voldemort folded to the floor, blood pumping from his chin where the jagged hilt had impaled him. Draco watched him fall, apparently oblivious to Hermione only a few feet away. His lips twitched in half a smile as he let the dripping hilt fall, before his fingers grazed the end of the blade embedded in his gut.

   In one fluid motion his knees buckled, and he twisted and hit the floor too, landing on his side in a sickeningly still way.

   “Draco!” cried Hermione, flinging herself into his blood and cradling his head. Harry’s feet were already taking the remaining steps two at a time to join her.

   “No,” he moaned, his hands in his hair. “No, no, no.”

   “Okay,” said Merlin softly, pushing through the crowd of people all taller than him. “Yes, it’s alright, let me through.”

   “Can you heal him?” Harry asked, dropping beside Hermione and taking her hand. To his immense relief, he could see Draco was still breathing, though only just. He was horribly pale and there was an astonishing amount of blood spreading through the carpet.

   Some of it was Voldemort’s, Harry reminded himself. Voldemort was dead, Draco had done it.

   But at what cost?

   Merlin raised an eyebrow in response to Harry’s question. “It’s just a little flesh wound,” he said scornfully.

   Harry touched Draco’s elbow, slippery with blood. “You hear that mate,” he said quietly. “You’re going to be fine.”

   But he didn’t respond.

   Merlin was crouched over him, performing magic without the use of a wand again, and Harry watched as an orange glow appeared about Draco’s gut. He convulsed and gritted his teeth, and Hermione let go of Harry to squeeze his hand with both of hers. “It’s fine, you’re doing great,” she said, her whole body wrought with concern.

   As Harry watched, the sword Voldemort had been using slowly vanished into thin air. As soon as it did, Merlin began muttering rapidly under his breath and moving his hands around Draco’s front and back as a rainbow of colours shone through the space between. Harry felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Alex hovering behind him, Seamus anxiously pacing at the foot of the stairs, biting his thumbnail and not taking his eyes off Draco.

   Puff was scampering around on all fours, playing in the sticky blood like a child with welly boots in puddles. “La la la,” he sang to himself.

   “Okay,” breathed Merlin, putting his hands gently on Draco and rolling him onto his back. Hermione kept hold of his hand and shift a little closer. Harry tried to swallow but his mouth was like sandpaper.  

   Suddenly, Draco coughed and opened his eyes, making everyone expect for Merlin jump. “Draco!” Harry cried, jerking forward, not caring that his clothes were being saturated in blood.

   Merlin was still casting his wandless magic, but he’d stopped chanting and was now just wearing a look of tight concentration. Draco’s eyes were fluttering, but they were definitely more open than closed, and he raised his left hand weakly to pat Hermione’s still gripping his right. “Fingers,” he breathed softly. “Broken.”

   Hermione looked down, and Harry could see that two of Draco’s fingers were indeed bandaged up. “Oh sorry! Sorry!” she cried, letting go in a flash before throwing her whole upper body onto his, careful to avoid his wound, but smothering him in a waterfall of brown hair and sobs.

   Harry felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Is he going to be okay?” he managed to force out his throat. Merlin smiled in an indulgent sort of way.

   “Yes,” he said. “Given time, he should make a full recovery.”

   Harry rocked backward into Alex’s legs and covered his eyes, his whole body shaking. He didn’t know what to think, he was numb with shock and relief, but Alex dropped down to sit beside him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders.

   “It’s alright,” he said in that diffident accent of his.

   Draco grunted. “I told you guys,” he said, a laugh trying to bubble its way up from his throat. “To go away.”

   “That’s because you’re an idiot,” said Hermione as she sat up, sniffing and wiping her face with the back of her hand.

   “I told you we shouldn’t have split up,” said Harry, lowering his hands and relaxing his body. The hole in Draco’s midsection seemed to be getting smaller and less red, and Alex gave him a pat and let go so they were sitting side by side in the blood.

   “But I got him, yeah?” Draco gasped, still reeling from his injury despite the healing Merlin had already done.

   Harry looked over at where Voldemort had fallen. He hadn’t spared him a second glance since the duel had ended, contempt and disinterest compounded by his worry for Draco. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “You got him. He’s dead.”

   Draco had been trying to move his head around, but at that he let it thud back down on the sodden carpet. He started laughing, a sound caught between elation, exhaustion and trauma.

   “It’s over,” said Seamus, relieved, coming to stand by them.

   Harry’s insides ran cold with guilt and shame. “No it’s not,” he said. Draco stopped laughing.

   “Didn’t you find your one yet?” he asked, turning his eyes more than his head towards Harry as Merlin continued to work.

   “Oh,” scoffed Harry, getting to his feet and moving away from the group. “I found him alright.”

   “You did?” said Seamus confused. Alex’s shoulders slumped, and he too got to his feet, trying unsuccessfully to brush some of the blood off his skinny jeans.

   “We were too late,” he said heavily, throwing Harry an apologetic look. Harry gave him a weak smile. It wasn’t their fault, but the gravity of the situation was crushing.

   Draco looked between the two of them, and managed, with a protest from Merlin, to prop himself up on his elbows. “Too late?” he said, anger creeping into his voice. Harry thought it was directed at him, but he turned to glare at everyone else on the landing. “What do you mean too late?”

   “Voldemort doesn’t want to destroy Limbo,” Harry began, but Draco cut him off.

   “I know,” he rasped and coughed again. “They want to use our bodies to travel into the universes.”

   So he was up to speed. Harry decided to just spit it out. “They were too late, because my Voldemort already did the ritual. He took over my body, and my soul got ejected, I’m like everyone else in Limbo now.”

   “Ahh,” said Puff a little too loudly, rocking back on his haunches and licking his lips, his eyes on Harry. “I thought you smelt different,” he said. “Makes sense now.”

   Draco stared at him in horror. “He’s already done the spell?” he cried.

   “You got kicked out of your body?” added Hermione with equal horror.

   “Stop fidgeting,” demanded Merlin.

   “But I don’t think he’s opened any portals yet,” said Alex reassuringly, darting over to look out the window. “Well, I can’t see a thing, but I am very confident we are still portal free.”

   “No,” said Draco, shaking his head. “No, my Voldemort definitely made it sound like we’d be sharing bodies, this can’t be right.”

   Harry shrugged. “I saw him,” he said wearily. “He’s me, like a twin. Except he’s flesh and blood, and I’m…” He looked down at his hands, and turned them over.

   “It’s true,” supplied Alex heavily. “I can see it, in his…” He waved his hands around Harry’s head and shoulders. “Stuff.”

   “How could you let this happen?” cried Draco, bringing on a fresh wave of coughing that made Merlin scowl, the colourful lights still working under his fingers.

   Hermione rested her hand on Draco’s shoulder to calm him. “Can we reverse the process?” she asked.

   “Merlin says yes,” Seamus told them, giving Harry a tight smile and thumbs up.

   “He said it might be possible,” clarified Harry. “And if it was it would be tricky.”

   The little magician brushed his hands together and rocked backwards onto his heels, giving Draco a nod to say he was finished. “We will need to evict Voldemort at the same time as we try and put Harry back in,” he said, getting to his feet. “Which if he was still and compliant might not be a problem.”

   “But there’s no way he’ll go down without a fight,” said Harry grimly.

   “Right,” said Draco, nodding and looking between everyone. “Right okay then.” Taking a deep breath and gritting his teeth, he managed to sit all the way up with Merlin and Hermione’s help. “So what are we sitting around here for then? Let’s go get Harry his body back.”

 

***

 

Hermione wasn’t sure how much longer they could keep going before the Death Eaters found them. She and Sarah were trying to head back towards the school with the playground and the shopping parade where she had set off the fireworks, but rainclouds were covering the moon making it very hard to see through the night and the deluge. They sprinted between abandoned cars, ducking low to try and avoid being seen by any more zombies, but they were picking up an eager following none the less.

   “So you know how to stop the zombie spell?” Sarah asked as they ducked behind a van from a carpet shop.

   Hermione let her eyes close, her fever so high she felt like it was burning her clothes. “I have a few ideas,” she admitted. “Though I don’t know exactly what will work, I’m sure one of them will.”

   She wrapped her fingers around her wand again, the realisation she had been reunited with it still making her heart flutter every time she remembered. Never again would she take magic for granted, no matter how small the spell or meagre the task.

   Sarah was shivering, huddled up in the rain. She looked cautiously over at Hermione. “Do you think he’s okay?”

   Hermione exhaled, trying to quash the guilt that rose up in her throat. Sarah wasn’t accusing her for Terry being infected, but Hermione blamed herself well enough. “He’s as fine as he can be,” she said quietly.

   “Just like my family,” said Sarah into her sleeves. She really wasn’t wearing enough clothing for this downpour, but Hermione herself didn’t even have a coat to protect her. Maybe that’s why her flu was getting so much worse.

   She took Sarah’s hand a squeezed it. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “But even if we don’t stop the spell, we have something to destroy the Horcrux, and if that happens maybe the Death Eaters will leave anyway.”

   Sarah lifted the key pendent off her chest and looked at it. “So this guy Crouch has a tooth that we can stab it with, and kill it?”

   Hermione checked around the van to make sure they were still alone. They were going to have to move soon, but she was so tired it was getting harder and harder to stay on her feet. “He put it in his pocket,” she replied. “But after I shot a load of fireworks at him he might have put it back on.” Or dropped it entirely, she thought with dread. They would deal with that scenario if they had to, they couldn’t worry about it now.

   Sarah barked a laugh at the back of her throat. “I thought that was Terry,” she said, then sort of nodded at Hermione with a wink. She decided to take that as a compliment.

   A gargled whine made her start, and she spun around on her behind, throwing her head down so she could look under the van. A familiar, four-legged friend was stumbling around waiting to great her, tongue lolling out and eyes still milky white. “Okay, time to go!” hissed Hermione, grabbing Sarah’s hand and pulling her to her feet.

   “What was that!” cried the younger girl as they began to weave through the stationary traffic.

   “I could be wrong,” said Hermione. “But I think that was my old Jack Russell friend. Zombie dog,” she added when Sarah looked at her blankly.

   “They can turn dogs!” said Sarah in dismay.

   Hermione shrugged. The shopping parade was just about visible in the distance again. “I guess it’s all body warmth, though I’m not sure what brain power they add to the enigma matrix-” She gasped and pulled them both down again by an old Mini Cooper. “Did you see that?”

   Sarah shook her head. “See what?”

   “Death Eaters,” said Hermione. She knew they had to be following her, but it still made her mouth dry that they had popped up so close. “I think there was about three of them.”

   Sarah peeked around the Mini. “Do you think they saw us?”

   Hermione swallowed. “Don’t know,” she said honestly. “I think we need to get to the trees again.”

   “If only we had a spell we could protect ourselves with,” said Sarah, looking anxiously around and massaging her healed ankle. “Like, whatever it is they have.”

   Hermione hadn’t even thought of that, she’d been so used to not being able to use Terry’s wand properly. She considered for a few seconds, then pulled Sarah into her and pointed her wand at them. _“Protego Horribilis!”_ she cried, before releasing her grip and getting carefully to her feet. “I don’t know if that’s what the Death Eaters used,” she said. “But it’s got to be better than nothing.”

   Sarah jumped up too. “Time to test it I guess,” she said, her voice fluttering a little with nerves. Two teenage boys, crackling with the tell-tale electricity were stumbling towards them, arms outreached, moaning loudly in their excitement of finding sentient people.

   Hermione pulled Sarah away. “I’m not convinced on how strong that’ll be,” she said, moving towards the embankment her and Terry had claimed not that long ago. “And I’d rather not risk getting turned. Let’s just try and keep clear, and if worse comes to worse it might prove to be better than nothing.”

   They reached the other side of the dual carriage way and scrambled up the muddy grass verge into a dense patch of trees. The boys were still following them, and they’d gained a couple of friends. Hermione heard a pitiful howl too over the thundering rain.

   “If we just head back to the cauldron,” she said as they started pushing hurriedly through the branches. “We can try and break the curse. Then we can think about finding Crouch and the Basilisk tooth.”

   Sarah suddenly yanked free of her grasp. “Did you see that?” she whispered, her whole body tense. Hermione allowed herself a deep, cool breath of air.

   “More zombies?” she asked. All she could see in the distance through the trees were the charges of blue light, and they were getting closer. “Yep, we need to keep moving.”

   Sarah narrowed her eyes, staring into the woods. “No, something else,” she said. “Wait for it – there!” she hissed, and this time Hermione caught was she meant. There was just a small flicker, a ripple in the air. “What do you think that is?”

   Hermione rubbed her forehead. “Not good,” she answered. “Come on, let’s keep going. The cauldron was set up on the playground.”

   “The one by the primary school?” Sarah asked. They edged around a thorny bush trying to put some distance between them and a zombie woman that had stumbled from within the depths of the woods towards them.

   Hermione nodded, tying to think if there were any other spells she could used to enhance their protection, but she feared they would all just feed the zombie’s magic like before.

   “There it is again!” hissed Sarah excitedly, and this time Hermione looked quick enough to where she was pointing to see the ripple shimmer into existence, hanging about eye level above the ground. A cold sensation contorted in her guts. No, it couldn’t be?

She said nothing, urging Sarah forewords quicker. What could be causing something like that, what did it look like? Nothing, Hermione decided. She had not encountered bits of the air that decided to wiggle in the perfectly decent air unless someone was directly pointing a wand at it. There hadn’t been anyone in sightline, and she and Sarah hadn’t been causing it. So what else could cause random flickers in the air?

   What had the troupe of unwilling witches and wizards been working on back at the trinket shop?

   “We need to end this spell _now,”_ she rasped, breaking into a careless sprint. The stumbling electric figures were all around them, and this time she had no Terry to distract them as they pelted towards the playground. But at least this time, unless it had been moved, she knew exactly where the vat of potion was. And more importantly, she had her wand back.

   Another ripple glimmered in the moonlight as they ran past, this one slightly bigger than the last. The edge of the tree line was just about becoming visible, so Hermione tired to ignore it, but yet another opened up right in front of them, causing Sarah to squeal and the two of them to split apart and run around it.

   “What _are_ they!” cried Sarah, looking over her shoulder.

   Hermione gritted her teeth. “If I had to guess,” she said grimly. “I’d say that was the Death Eaters trying to break through the barriers between realities.”

   “What!” shrieked Sarah louder than she probably should have. Several zombies moaned audibly in response throughout the woods.  

   “Crouch and Quirrell were trying to follow Voldemort into Limbo.”

   Sarah spluttered rainwater. “How did they even know where he went?”

   But Hermione shook her head. “Long story,” she said. She could explain about Voldemort sharing headspace with Quirrell later. If they survived.

   The trees were definitely thinning, but the zombies sadly were not. The girls had several close calls as they scrambled through the forest towards the playground. One even got close enough to make Hermione think her shield charm might have worked, but she wouldn’t have liked to say for certain.

   One of the ripples was hanging near the last of the trees, and as they ran towards it, Hermione swore she saw a wisp of black smoke creep out from the shimmer. She shook her head and decided it was too dark to really tell anything, but then another tendril of black caught the moonlight. “Is there smoke coming out of that one?” she breathed heavily to Sarah as they approached.

   The other girl stopped dead in her tracks.

   “What did you say?” she said, her expression and tone deadly serious. Hermione’s eyes flicked at the zombies fumbling towards them and stopped as well.

   “It was nothing,” she said hastily. “Forget it, they’re coming and they might be leading the Death Eaters.” She waved her hand towards the nearest zombie for effect.

   “Hermione,” growled Sarah. “Did you, or did you not, see black smoke coming out of the ripple that you thought might lead to Limbo?”

   It seemed to actually be quite important to Sarah, so Hermione answered honestly. “I think so,” she said, edging another few steps towards the playground. “It’s dark.”

   “I know what that is,” said Sarah, her feet suddenly coming back to life as she surged forwards, scouting round the ripple and the surrounding ground. “It-”

   But at that moment more of the black gas floated out from the ripple, and Sarah grabbed Hermione’s arm and swung her away bodily.

   “RUN!” she bellowed, firing wildly at the smoke.

   “You’ll get us seen!” cried Hermione as they burst out onto the grassy verge. It was a relief to be out of the oppressive, grappling branches, but Hermione instantly missed the cover they gave to them.

   “They’re called Fixers,” gasped Sarah. The smoke seemed to be drifting together, forming a bigger cloud. “They’ll suck your life energy right out or you, I’ve seen it happen!”

   “What?” said Hermione. They were stumbling backwards towards the playground up ahead, there were zombies everywhere.

   “You can blast them back with magic, any magic, it doesn’t matter what spell. But they adapt after you use the same one a couple of times, so be creative!” She was half crazed, shaking with adrenalin, spinning in every direction with her eyes desperately coming their surroundings.  

   “Are you saying something is coming out of Limbo?” Hermione asked, not willing to believe they could possibly have something else attacking them.

   “Yes,” snapped Sarah. There were voices shouting but Hermione was having great difficulty placing from where. “They attacked before, the school was in Limbo, then went back but the Fixers came too-”

   She cut herself off with a yelp as she realised the zombie hoard they were running towards was getting denser. The girls twisted their heads between the shimmers behind, the cursed townspeople all around and the aggravated cries possibly coming from the road or the trees, Hermione still couldn’t tell.

   The jungle gym and swings were visible over the throng’s heads, and Hermione had lost what little was left of her patience. _“Deprimo!”_ she bellowed, consequences be damned.

   The great gust of wind powered from her wand, toppling the zombies over in their wake. “Move!” shouted Sarah a little unnecessarily, but Hermione raced ahead without a word. She was so focused on the spot between the two apparatuses, firing out her spell again. Because the wind _itself_ wasn’t magic, just the result of it, it seemed to be working at shoving the zombies about a little. She was cross she hadn’t thought of it earlier.

   “Watch out!” shrieked Sarah, firing wildly as a large body of the black smoke soared above their heads. Her spell only just missed, but caused the cloud to jerk in a very lively way. It veered towards the nearest cursed person, and Sarah screamed an unearthly sound, trying to fire again at the mass but it seemed immune to her magic.

   A tendril reached for the zombie woman who was obliviously trying to stagger back up on her feet. Sarah ran astonishingly fast, but pulled up short. The cloud seemed to change its mind, and moved away from the woman.

   “What?” spluttered Sarah as Hermione reached her.

   “Look out!” replied Hermione. The cloud made a beeline for them again, and she recalled Sarah’s warning and summed up the most random spells she could muster. _“Avis Oppugno!”_ she cried, summoning a flock of bluebirds that dove for the cloud, making it dart backwards several feet. _“Tarantallegra! Furnunculus! Mobiliarbus!”_

   The cloud gave up and shot off into the night, but the two girls were already looking desperately around in every direction. A jet of red light exploded over their heads, causing them to cry out, and Hermione dashed forward once again.

   She was close enough to the playground now, and aimed right between the swings and jungle gym. _“Homenum Revelio!”_

   The pulse emanated from her and raced across the concrete, passing innocently through the zombies and equipment, but, just as before, brought the snivelling Quirrell into sight along with his large, bubbling cauldron. He had been looking right at Hermione, waiting for her next move. “NO!” he shrieked as he realised they could see him, and tried to throw himself in front of the cauldron. “It’s finally working, they found the answer!” he begged as they ran the last few steps. “You can’t stop it now, it’ll lose power!”

   _“Impedimenta!”_ shouted Hermione, blasting him out of the way.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ added Sarah, forcing his wand to fly into the air. _“Incarcerous!”_ She marched up to him as the ropes she’d conjured bound him and the zombies slowly shuffled back towards them. “Those _things!”_ she spat out. “Will suck the life out of everyone living and they’ll never stop. You’re just lucky the zombies haven’t got enough life force to interest them, but hopefully you and your buddies _will!”_

   Quirrell made a squeaky sound, and looked between Sarah and Hermione, who had approached the cauldron. After firing off another round of wind to discourage her zombie pals form getting to her for just a few more moments, she considered the bubbling, green liquid in front of her.

   She had maybe thirty seconds before the Death Eaters reached them, then it would be all over. Less if she was realistic. So she just launched right in with the most obvious spell she could think of.

   _“Finite Incantatem!”_ she said, using the standard spell to finish all spells. Nothing happened, which wasn’t all that surprising, but she still felt the twang of disappointment.

   “Hermione,” said Sarah wearily, backing up towards her. “Now…now would be good!”

   Another figure had appeared amongst the zombies, clearly not cursed, but not a Death Eater either. The man was young and slim, dressed in black trousers with white shirt, braces, a trilby hat and eyes like black beetles. A cigarette hung from his grinning lips, and the smoke lingered through the rain.   

   “Fixer!” yelled Sarah, shooting at it with little effect, and Hermione cursed. She didn’t even question that was what had been the black smoke, Sarah seemed to know a lot about these creatures, but they really had no time for this.

   _“Flagrate!”_ she shouted at it, leaving a fiery trial in the spell’s wake, and the creature flinched backwards several feet. She turned back to the cauldron. _“Confringo!”_ she tried, attempting to just blast the potion away, then _“Tergeo!”_ to siphon it off. Nothing. She fired both the spells at the irritated Fixer for good measure whilst Sarah repeated her blasts of wind on the zombies.

   But they would need a bit more than that once the Death Eaters caught up to them, and from the spells shooting over their heads that would be imminent. Hermione tried a reversing spell, a combination of a charm and a hex that she felt might act as a different kind of finishing spell, and a spell to just make the whole vat vanish. Still nothing. She screamed in frustration. The Fixer had darted off for now, but the pitiful cursed people were still trying to reach them, and the Death Eaters were close enough to make out the actual words they were shouting.

   “Get off!” cried one voice, and “What are those things?” another. People were screaming and magic was firing through the air like the fireworks Hermione had set off.

   “The Fixers,” breathed Sarah with a ghost of a smile. “They’re going after the Death Eaters, they might buy us some time!” Luckily she had thought to gag Quirrell, but he was still yelling from behind it as loud as he could. Sarah cuffed the back off his head, told him to shut up and blasted back some zombies.

   They seemed to be getting used to the wind though, and only stumbled back a few feet.

   Hermione shook her wand in front of her face. Why couldn’t she think of anything? She’d spent the last few hours separated from what she’d become to think of as the most integral part of herself, her magic. Why was it failing her now, what other spells could she think of, what more could she do?

   She went freezing cold as the shock of the idea hit her. She hadn’t had her wand during this crisis, but she had _survived._ What if magic wasn’t always the answer?

   They had maybe seconds left. The Death Eaters were blasting their way through, with no regard to the innocent zombie people that got in the way. “Sarah!” she screamed, desperation making her voice crack. “Help me push!”

   Sarah didn’t ask for an explanation, she just took a run at the cauldron, and slammed her body into where Hermione was already shoving. The pot teetered on its legs, gravity helping them as the liquid sloshed over the rim. Quirrell bleated and squealed at them from behind his gag and writhed in his ropes, but Hermione wasn’t going to pay him any heed.

   She let out a strangled cry of her own as the cauldron finally tipped, and the boiling hot potion splashed out in a tidal wave, dashing everyone within a ten foot radius and making the girls jump back. A terrifying hush filled the air, like the volume had been turned off on a television, and for a moment Hermione wasn’t sure what was going to happen.

   The zombified people buckled their knees and dropped their heads back, like they’d lost the ability to stand but were still being held up by a rope attached to their chests. In a heartbeat, the air was filled by the piercing sound of their unearthly wails, each and every person screaming from the depths of their lungs. On instinct, Hermione ducked down into the cooling liquid, pulling Sarah with her, and within seconds her intuition was proved right. The blue electricity erupted with a force ten times more than anything they’d seen on the zombies before. It connected the cursed people in a dazzling web of light, jerking their bodies as if they were being electrocuted.

   “It’s killing them!” screamed Hermione in helpless panic, but as the words left her mouth the lights vanished, and the crowd dropped to the floor, exhausted.

 

***

 

   “Whoa, whoa, whoa there,” snapped Merlin, and held his hands up in front of Draco’s chest. Draco looked back at him, an eyebrow raised. “You’re in no fit state to go anywhere.”

   Draco grunted. “We have to go help Harry,” he insisted, glancing up at his woebegone friend. Harry was white and sick looking, his hands shoved in his pockets, his clothes covered in Draco and Voldemort’s blood.

   Actually, everyone was covered in his blood. Draco resisted the urge to apologise, but it was quite a macabre sight.

   “If you move now, you’ll undo all the good I’ve done,” said Merlin, his hands glowing again as the outline of a goblet slowly appeared in the thin air.

   “But-” Draco protested.

   “Merlin’s right,” Hermione said forcefully, taking his hand and making him look at her. “We’ll go help Harry, you stay here with Merlin and rest.”

   “You want the most powerful wizard,” said Draco, still refusing to lie down. “In all of Limbo, to _babysit_ me?”

   “Draco,” said Seamus firmly, but Draco cut him off.

“There’s no time!” he said, feeling like he was speaking on Harry’s behalf. “Voldemort could be opening that portal right now, and my one said that no one could follow him once he went through, you’d have to just wait for him to come back!”

   “Hang on,” said Hermione. “What do you mean, why couldn’t you go through, you’re still a real bodied person? I mean,” she turned to Merlin and the Watchers. “Worst case scenario, if the other Voldemort gets the portal open and walks through, why can’t Draco chase after him, he’s still real, still alive?”

   But Merlin was shaking his head. “You would need a soul inside from Limbo to guide you back into this realm, Draco would be stranded in whatever reality Voldemort travelled to.”

   “Oh,” said Hermione, looking back down at Draco and squeezing his hand. Draco felt his head swimming, there was too much going on at once.

   “But I could just open a Dimensional Portal couldn’t I, to get home? That’s not the point, I’d risk doing it if it came to it, but it would be _better_ if we just got Harry to his Voldemort and stopped him before it came to that!”

   “Any word on the Horcrux?” Harry asked Alex, his voice coming out small and raspy.

   Alex shook his head. “Not yet,” he admitted. “Though I know they’re working on it.”

   Hermione was frowning as Merlin placed the now solid goblet on the floor and concentrated on filling it with a potion made from ingredients he was, again, pulling from thin air. Draco took a second to marvel at the skill level that must have been requiring.

   “Will it still work, now that Harry’s not in his body?” She looked between Alex and Seamus. “Will he still have that great and powerful advantage you promised?”

   “Hey,” said Draco gently, squeezing her hand this time. “Don’t be mad at them.”

   “Yeah,” said Puff in a sing-song voice. “Don’t be _mad_ at them.” Draco suspected he enjoyed telling Hermione off, rather than defending the Watchers.

   “I’m not mad,” said Hermione a little squeakily. “I’m just saying, they got Voldemort’s plan wrong, and now things have changed, Harry’s a lost soul now, a Drifter, will the magical theory still stand?”

   “Yes,” said Merlin, Seamus and Alex all together.

   “Good,” said Harry, and before Hermione or Draco had time to open their mouths to protest, he crouched back down beside them. “I’ll go and see if I can find out what’s going on, and Alex can tell me if the Horcrux has been destroyed, yeah?”

   Alex nodded. “I won’t let you anywhere near him until then.”

   “I’m not saying I don’t want the help,” Harry said, a remorseful sort of laugh at the back of his throat. “But I want you to heal before you go anywhere.”

   “Exactly,” agreed Seamus, jabbing a finger at him. “You’re the only real body left here in Limbo-”

   “Except for Voldemort,” said Draco through a clenched jaw.

   Seamus just raised an eyebrow before carrying on. “The rest of us can heal ourselves through sheer will, you have to do it the old fashioned way. Which is why you need ‘the most powerful wizard in all of Limbo’ more than we do.”

   “Speaking of which,” said Merlin. “Drink this.” He handed him the goblet he’d been working with, and Draco glanced down at the purple liquid simmering inside. “Go on,” said Merlin irritably. “Down in one.” Draco sighed, and placed the metal rim to his lips.

The potion was warm and spicy, with fruity, chocolate tastes to it. Finding it surprisingly pleasant, Draco didn’t stop gulping until it was all gone.

   “How about this,” said Harry, giving Draco a small smile. “I’ll take Alex with me, and maybe Seamus?” The other Watcher nodded. “We can get a feel for how bad things are down there, where Voldemort has got to and all that, then by that time maybe you’ll be well enough to come join us.”

   Draco licked his lips and looked at the goblet. “I’m already feeling better,” he admitted, placing it down on the carpet.

   “Then a few more minutes rest won’t hurt will it?” said Alex, darting to the other side of the landing. “Let us do the legwork, hey?” He stooped and picked up what was left of the Sword of Gryffindor off the floor, stepping over Voldemort’s corpse to move back towards Draco, plucking his wand up as well as he went. “You should probably keep a hold of this while we’re gone though. It might still do some good.”

   “Hey!” cried Draco, as the Watcher handed them back to him. He pocketed the wand and looked at the sword hilt, surely pretty useless now. “How come it didn’t burn you, or Hermione,” he added, turning to her. “When you gave it to me earlier?”

   “For exactly that reason,” said Alex with a small smile. “We’re just giving it to you, not using it ourselves. Ric always liked that kind of loyal magic.”

   “Hey,” said Puff suddenly, flipping over from where he’d been rolling on his back, pulling at his toes. “What’s that noise?”

   Everyone became alert. “What noise?” asked Draco, feeling particularly vulnerable from his position on the floor. Despite his better judgement, he shoved what remained of the blade back into the sheath around his waist, thinking it might be good luck if nothing else, and took out his wand.

   “Something’s coming,” said Merlin, standing up and looking around with keen eyes. “We need to relocate, you two, help Draco to stand.”

   He pointed at Seamus and Hermione, who were only too happy to help. Draco’s legs felt like they were made from water as he let himself be aided upright, and he appreciated that maybe his protests earlier about going to help Harry were premature.

   “Down the stairs,” said Harry, following Puff as he charged, but as they moved forward, the little dragon suddenly pulled up short.

   “Other way!” he cried, turning on a hairpin.

   The front doors, only just visible in the gloomy light, burst open in an explosion of fire and sound, ripping the wood off its hinges, blasting the glass from the windows and raining it down on the group as they slammed backwards onto the steps, crying out. Draco and Hermione lost their grip on each other as they fell, and Draco hit his head, causing lights to dance in front of his eyes, blending in with the flames already caught on the carpet and walls.

   “Whoops!” cried a voice from across the threshold, and Draco looked up, shielding his eyes as a figure danced through the flames. “Not sure how to control him yet!”

   Godric Gryffindor was duelling with several Rhansyk, all of them wizards. They were moving at an astonishing rate as Godric taunted his foes on the front patio area where the doors had once opened out to. The spells flew wildly but Godric seemed to be handling it, keeping the Rhansyk’s attention as Draco and the small group pulled back together and got to their feet. Draco couldn’t find the strength though, and stayed slumped where he was. Merlin threw up a shield charm to protect them from any stray shots.

   “Do you need a hand old friend?” he called casually over to Godric.

   “Nah,” he said, pulling one of the Rhansyk apart like a decrepit rag doll. “I’ve got this.”

   “We have to find another way out,” said Seamus as he hauled Draco back up, his whole body shaking with adrenaline. He nodded.

   “There’s another set of stairs,” he said. Something moved beyond Godric and the Rhansyk still left fighting him. The feet and lower body could be seen of the black dragon they had glimpsed flying by earlier, the one with the golden belly. It roared and another shower of fire came blasting down, melting more of the front of the house.

   “Godric get out of there!” screamed Alex as their group scrambled hastily up the flight of stairs. Draco’s lungs felt like he was actually swallowing fire they were so hot, he didn’t understand how Godric and the others could still be fighting in such heat.

   “He can handle a few Rhansyk,” said Merlin, blasting the flames with water, but they refused to go out. Merlin frowned. “That’s odd,” he said. “It must breath fiendfyre?”

   “I’m going to help him,” snapped Alex, but Seamus grabbed his arm.

   “How, you’re not a wizard? He’s fine, we need to get out to Voldemort.”

   A shadow flickered amidst the flames. “What was that?” said Draco, pointing as it came again. It was like a blackness twisting through the fire, like wings unfurling.

   Puff suddenly stood up on his hind legs, his little body quivering and his blue eyes like saucers.

   _“RUN!”_ he screeched as loud as his lungs would allow, racing back up the stairs and out of sight.

   Draco opened his mouth to call after him, but Harry shouted out instead.

   “Get back!” he yelled as one of the Rhansyk broke through Godric’s one man barrage and tore around the flames towards them. He was a regular Death Eater, and Draco thought he might even have recognised him. Harry and Seamus both fired at him, whilst Draco fumbled to get his wand out.

   _“Sectumsempra!”_ he bellowed, hitting the man bang on the chest just as he was regaining his footing and aiming at Harry. The spell smashed into him, ripping through the stitches holding his fettered body together and flinging the scattered pieces to the ground.

   “Ha!” cried Godric. “Nice one.”

   There was definitely a shadow growing bigger amidst the fire, something moving of its own accord. “You guys can see that, right?” asked Draco, his attention moving back between his friends, Godric, the remaining Rhansyk and the shadow.

   “Whatever it was scared Puff off,” said Alex, panic on his face. “You guys move back, now!” He turned back to Godric as he shoved Draco and the others towards the landing above them again. Merlin had moved away, to the side of the room, and was muttering, his hands glowing green but the fire still raged, creeping further outwards, and the shadow took on a more solid look.

   He shook his head to himself, his brow furrowed and his jaw clenched. “I can’t disperse it,” he said tersely. “We need to evacuate immediately.”

   Godric still had two vicious Rhansyk keeping him occupied, and was laughing and goading them, his back to the inferno. Draco aimed his slashing spell at one of them, but he had learned from his fellow Death Eater, and managed to dodge it. Hermione, Harry and Seamus were also firing at them and at the fire, but nothing was putting it out, like it had taken on a power all of its own.

   “Godric!” screamed Alex desperately. “There’s something in the fire, watch out!”

   “Oh Lexy,” scoffed Ric, jumping about like a boy with a football. “You always worried too-”

   The creature pounced, erupting from the fire like a winged, tar black troll with red embers for eyes and razors for hands. It lunged for Godric, singling him out from the Rhansyk, arms outstretched.

   Draco only managed to see his face drop, the man who was leading the defence to save Limbo, the man who had founded his school house, leant him his sword, possibly even called him his friend. He only had a split second for people to react, to shoot and to yell, but it was too late.

   The creature’s claws tore through Godric Gryffindor, and ripped his body to shreds.


	16. Lights (Part Five)

Chapter Seven - Part Five

 

   Sarah stared in horror from her crouched position on the ground of the playground, Hermione clinging to her in the rain as they looked around at the litter of motionless people that had dropped to the ground. “No,” she breathed. “No they can’t be-”

   Several shouts snapped her attention away, making her look around the set of swings to the half a dozen Death Eaters wrestling with the Fixers. Some were smoke and some were people-looking, but they had all been trying to get to the wizards and witches in black, to suck their life force out of them. Some had succeeded. But as Sarah looked up they began convulsing, twitching, and the ones that had taken on human form began shimmering, losing their shape and shuddering into gas once more.

   Sarah didn’t even realise there was a ripple portal hanging in the air not ten feet away, until the nearest Fixer suddenly shot towards it, disappearing back to Limbo as the ripple vanished from sight.

   “The portals are closing!” she cried. “They’re being sucked back in!”

   More of the Fixers zipped away, finding portals across the playground and towards the woods as they closed and left their reality. The Death Eaters that were still standing seemed torn at what to do. Helping their fellows that had been attacked didn’t seem a high priority unsurprisingly, but some were running, and some were looking around. For her and Hermione?

   “But the people?” asked Hermione her hands in her tangled hair, her face stretched in horror. “If the spell is broken and the enigma matrix has stopped working, are they-”

   The woman nearest Sarah sat up in a blink of an eye, gasping for breath like she’d emerged from deep underwater. Hermione’s whole body jolted against Sarah’s in shock.

   “Over there!” yelled one of the Death Eaters, and Quirrell moaned from behind his gag.

   _“Expelliarmus!”_ shouted Hermione defiantly, and she and Sarah dashed behind the jungle gym for cover. Several people around flailed their limbs and lurched forward too, gulping down air and shouting out. “What’s going on!” said one man, trying to stand up but looking too disorientated to achieve it.

   “Where am I!” yelled another young woman. People began crying and fumbling around in the rain.

   Sarah was overcome by delirium, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You did it!” she shrieked, shoving Hermione probably a little too roughly for how ill she still looked, but the other girl was smiling too.

   “They’re okay,” she said disbelieving.

   “NO!” howled a voice, and Sarah’s insides ran cold. She and Hermione threw their heads around the side of the play equipment. The townspeople were stumbling, crying, trying to get up, shouting. But almost all of the Death Eaters that had cursed them, that had been trying to stop Sarah and Hermione from helping them, were disappearing into the night without a second thought. Some didn’t even bother to conceal themselves before apparating, they just turned on the spot, right in front of the Muggles, making them scream and upsetting them even further.

   But one loan, cloaked figure was remaining.   “Get BACK here!” he roared to his vanishing comrades.

“Crouch,” rasped Hermione.

   Sarah heard herself suck in a breath and she took in the tall, handsome brunette man. “He has our tooth?” she asked, their second mission coming back to her, clearing away all the euphoria she’d felt in an instant.   Hermione nodded at her, and without thinking, she stood up.

   “No!” cried Hermione, trying to pull her back.

   Sarah was already moving though. “He can’t get away!” she insisted. “Hey!” she shouted, setting off some sparks from her wand. “Over here, you idiot!”

   Crouch fired at her before he even looked properly, and Sarah did a dive roll out the way, landing by a merry-go-round that gave her no cover. “Get back here Mudblood!” he screamed.

   Sarah ran for a climbing wall angled against a small wooden tower with a flat slide coming off the other side. “Not a Mudblood,” she cried back, not really sure what she was hoping to achieve – to taunt him, make him even madder? The word made her so angry though she couldn’t help but respond. She dived behind the climbing wall, giving herself some cover as Hermione fired several spells at him from behind the jungle gym.

   “I should never have trusted you girl!” roared Crouch. “I knew you were lying, I let that snivelling Quirrell get the better of me!”

   From where he was still sat tied up, the man in the turban suddenly became very pale and very still. Sarah almost pitied him.

   “You believed every word I said!” crowed Hermione, sending another volley of magic that made the Muggles recoil and scream as Crouch threw up a protection charm, but even so Hermione’s spells still blasted him back. He only showed a flicker of concern, but Sarah saw it and apparently, so did Hermione.

   “Funny what a difference having your own wand makes, doesn’t it?” she cried, before dissolving into a wave of sticky coughing. Still though, Crouch looked like he wasn’t underestimating her. Sarah could see Hermione, and she was motioning with her hand; she was telling Sarah to move closer.

   “You’ve ruined everything!” Crouch yelled back, aiming at the jungle gym. _“Confringo!”_ The apparatus exploded into flames, and Sarah couldn’t help but shout Hermione’s name as she jumped backwards, falling to the floor.

   Crouch grinned and marched forwards. _“Mobilicorpus!”_ he snarled at the Muggles, sweeping them aside in their deteriorated state, causing them to shriek and flail. Sarah used the cover of the tumbling bodies either side of him to move closer to Crouch, slipping away from the climbing wall and into the throng. She really hoped Hermione could take care of herself for a minute, but the blaze of sparks that tore out from behind the jungle gym told her she could.

   Sarah crouched in the rain by several people who were trying to edge away from the mad man, and one of them, a young man in his twenties with a square jaw reached limply up to her. “What’s going on?” he rasped, and the people around Sarah all tried to turn and look at her.

   She was worried about catching Crouch’s attention again, and prayed the dark and the rain was providing her just a little bit of cover. “You need to get out of here,” she whispered back. “He’s dangerous.”

   “Have you called the police?” a woman asked as they edged further out of the playground, and Sarah went to dive behind a see-saw.

   She nodded. “Yes,” she lied. If that would get them to move quicker, then so be it. She couldn’t explain she had means of taking care of herself, no matter how meagre.

   Hermione and Crouch were still duelling, and she was doing a spectacular job of keeping him at bay. The rain had helped her out by dousing the flames, but Crouch knew plenty of other spells, ones Sarah had never even heard of, but Hermione was fighting back with just as many.

   Sarah ran behind the see-saw, looking around to see if there were any more Death Eaters hanging around, but aside from Quirrell who was tied up, all the rest had abandoned ship. Muggles were stumbling all around her – why couldn’t there be any witches or wizards in the area? She knew how many there were in her home town, couldn’t there have been just one to help her when she needed it?

   Of course not, the universe didn’t work like that.

   “I will _make_ you help me!” bellowed Crouch, trying to get past the jungle gym but Hermione had reinforced it. “You must know something, the sooner you come out, the sooner this can all be over!”

   “Yeah,” coughed Hermione. “I’ll be right out. _Expulso!”_

   Crouch was blasted backwards, scattering the Muggles in his path, and Sarah suddenly found herself within several feet of him.

   They locked eyes in shock for just a moment, before Sarah came to her senses. _“Accio Basilisk tooth!”_ she screamed, and from out of his pocket flew the poisoned fang they had been so desperately searching for.

   But Crouch was fast. He snatched the necklet out of the air, scrambled to his feet and lunged for Sarah.

   She cried out and tried to get away, but he was much bigger than she was, and he had no trouble in flipping them over and pinning her to the ground, knocking her wand aside.

   “You!” he growled in his Scottish accent, his eyes full of malice as he thrust his wand in her throat. “The Potter girl!” He dropped his narrow face down to hers as she squirmed under his iron grip. “This is all your fault, if Pettigrew hadn’t brought you to Germany-”

   Sarah didn’t wait for him to finish, she just stopped trying to pull his arm off her chest and jammed both her thumbs into his eyes instead.

   Crouch bellowed and jerked back in shock, and Sarah used her spare second to shove him, making the tooth go flying into a puddle as she did. He only moved a little backwards, but she was able to wriggle her legs from under his grip. He lunged for her though before she could get out of his way completely, seizing her ponytail and yanking her down.

   “Come back here,” he snarled, his hand gripping around her throat. “I was hoping I might be the one to find you, after the trouble you caused.”

     “Oi!” a gruff voice called out weakly, and Sarah struggled to see a man in overalls with a big pot belly and tufty moustache stagger to his feet. “You leave her alone!”

   Crouch responded by latching his other hand around Sarah’s neck. Spots were swimming in front of her eyes as she scratched at his hand, arms, face, anything she could reach. Another voice called out though, and suddenly a pair of hands were pulling clumsily at Crouch’s shoulders.

   Crouch just snarled and squeezed tighter, real terror engulfing Sarah as she choked for breath.

   _“Stupefy!”_ screamed Hermione, and a jet of red light shot through the air, hitting Crouch square in the chest. His shield spell was still holding though, so it didn’t knock him unconscious, but it did send him flying over Sarah’s head.

   She coughed violently and curled on her side, gasping for breath. The Muggles that had been trying to help her had shuffled back in fear at the spell, but now they were starting on Crouch again as he scrambled to his feet. “You get out of here!” breathed the tufty moustache man, using all his strength to take a step towards Crouch and get his words out at the same time. The zombie curse must have really taken it out of them.

   But Crouch dived for the tooth that was lying next to Sarah and seized it, just as Hermione reached them. Crouch held up the tooth, and pointed his wand at it.

   The two girls froze, and even the Muggles seemed to sense the importance of it all as they stopped trying to sluggishly pull him away from them. “You need this,” sneered Crouch. “Don’t you?”

   “Give it to us,” said Hermione, practically swaying on her feet. “And we’ll let you walk.”

   Sarah opened her mouth to protest they couldn’t do that, but then snapped it shut. Even after all the devastation this man had caused, the fate of the Multiverse far outweighed him.

   Crouch laughed, and Sarah saw someone moving in the crowd. She wanted to shout at whoever the Muggle was to stop where they were before they messed everything up, but she didn’t want to unsettle Crouch.

   “Oh you’ll _let_ me walk!” he cried, jabbing his wand at the tooth, causing Sarah’s heart to jolt. “You wanted to get this off me earlier, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with getting into Limbo, I can tell from how we _actually_ did it.”

   “Almost did it,” snarled Sarah, and regretted in immediately.

   “What IS it!” Crouch roared. The Muggles were blurring into the rain, but that one figure was still moving. Could Hermione see it too? “Tell me or I’ll blow it into a thousand pieces!”

   Hermione threw her free hand up. “It’s worthless,” she insisted. “You saw what I can do, you saw I’m not helpless, untrained _Mudblood.”_ She spat the word out with as much distain as Sarah had felt earlier. “Your plan has failed, these people’s minds are no longer working on your matrix, the portals have closed.”

   “So I should just do what you say?” scoffed Crouch. The Muggles were still crowded around despite their fear and confusion. Maybe it was curiosity keeping them there, maybe they thought they could help the two girls. Sarah felt like scoffing herself. Crouch had worked out they needed the tooth, and they needed it desperately. They were never getting it now.

   “If you destroy that tooth,” said Hermione, her voice strained but she managed to hang onto the raking cough Sarah could tell was brewing. “You will never see your master again.”

   It was only a half truth, but it was still truth, Sarah thought. If Voldemort tore apart the Multiverse, no one would ever see anyone ever again. For a moment, she thought the sincerity in Hermione’s voice might have been enough to sway Crouch, but he just smirked.

   “You’re lying,” he drawled. “Again. I think I should just take this tooth and-”

   They never got a chance to find out what Bartemius Crouch Jr wanted to do with the tooth, because at that moment a boy lunged clumsily out from the crowd, a boy with a dripping beanie hat and no shoes, and socked the Death Eater square on the jaw, spinning him on the spot.

   “Shut UP!” cried Terry Boot as he too lost his balance and staggered to the floor.

   But all Sarah saw was the tooth, arching through the air, gliding through the rain as it left Crouch’s hand.

   _“Accio Basilisk tooth!”_ she screamed, and this time there was nothing to stop it from shooting into her outstretched grasp.

   She heard Hermione calling her name, but it barely registered. As soon as the tooth touched her skin, the key around her neck began burning like it had been sitting in a fire, and with a scream Sarah tugged at the chain and yanked it off her head, throwing the necklace to the ground.

   The moment it hit the concrete, light exploded from the small form of the key, and a shape blossomed out like a viscous, oily bubble. Sarah staggered back in shock, fear alive in her belly as the Basilisk tooth dug into her palm. Voices were crying out, but they all seemed muffled and far away, like a dome had formed around her and the Horcrux. The bubble was taking shape, and what Sarah saw stilled her heart.

   It was her. It was a twisted, warped, mirror-version of herself. Thinner than she’d ever been, her bones seemed to stick out at angles and the skin on her face was gaunt with sunken, dark eyes. She looked frail and poisonous, like a creature that had been deprived of light and nourishment. People were shouting out, but Sarah could hardly register anything apart from the ghost in front of her.

   “Oh look,” it said in mock surprise. “Am I supposed to be scared?”

   Sarah tried to take a step forward, but it was like the rain was pushing her backwards. She shivered and dug the tooth into her palm. “You’re the Horcrux?” she breathed. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Hermione had said they needed to destroy the necklace, that’s what Seamus had told her. There had been nothing about talking to a twisted version of herself. Did she have to fight it?

   “Of course,” said the ghost version of herself with scorn. “You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?” She pulled a mock face of understanding as Sarah’s hair was plastered down her face, over her eyes and ears. There was movement around her but Sarah didn’t really take it in, all she could see was her alter-ego’s smirk. “Oh,” she said, her lip curling. “You did. How adorable.”

   Sarah shook her head. “No,” she said. What was wrong with her? She made her foot move forwards, and then the other, but the Horcrux laughed, like glass breaking.

   “What could you possibly to do me?” the Sarah ghost trilled in a high, girlish flutter. “Sad little Sarah, always causing a nuisance,” she carried on, swaying in the moonlight almost like she was dancing. “Always waiting for the rescue.”

   Sarah’s heart pounded and her hands fell limp by her side. She knew it couldn’t be real, but a coldness was settling around her heart, filling her with despair and doubt. She tried to answer back, but her small voice got lost in her throat.

   The ghost tutted, her feet blurring by the ground around the key. Outlines of people were moving as if slow motion at the edge of Sarah’s vision and through the wind and rain she was sure someone was calling her name.

   “When will you learn?” the other Sarah carried on, shaking her head. “You’re such a burden to everyone; your family, your school, even Draco doesn’t want you, hanging on his coattails like a lost puppy.”

   “But,” whimpered Sarah. She felt like maybe someone was near her, even touching her, but all she could see was the mirror of herself, and she was growing bigger.

   “None of this would have happened if you’d just fought back, if you’d just stopped Pettigrew,” sneered the ghost Sarah. “If only you’d not been so useless hey? Think of all the lives you might have saved.”

   “I know,” Sarah whispered. She was just a scared little girl with hardly any magical skills. She just got in the way, if it wasn’t for her everything would have been so much better. What had she been thinking? She should have let Hermione take on the Horcrux, she was so much more powerful, but no Sarah had to try and prove she could do it all herself. And now she was going to let Harry and Draco down, when they’d been counting on her. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears mixing with the rain.

   People were definitely moving and shouting around her, but it was like she and the Horcrux ghost were all alone, with the rest of the world far away and quiet.

   “Sorry?” laughed the other Sarah. “Sorry doesn’t fix it! Honestly, don’t you think it would have been better for everyone if you’d just died in Germany, saved them all a lot of trouble?”

   Sarah nodded, a sob hiccupping from her chest.

   “And you parents,” continued the Horcrux in a silky voice. It looked like she was getting more solid, less blurry even though Sarah’s eyes were thick with tears. “It’s your fault, you know that don’t you? The arguments, the nights spent in separate beds, the drinking? If it wasn’t for you, they’d be fine.”

   “No,” Sarah tried, swallowing hard. Her faith in her parents wasn’t as easy to shake as her faith in herself, and a spark of resistance flared. “No they love me, stop trying to distract me.”

   The other Sarah laughed, holding out her hands and inviting her to look around. “You’re distracting yourself,” she said, pleased. Sarah blinked and trying to make sense of all the people around her, and even felt like someone might have their hands on her shoulders, but she couldn’t be sure.

   “I have to stop you,” she said, her foot taking her another step closer.

   The Horcrux raised her eyebrows. “Like you stopped Pettigrew?” she asked. “Or Bellatrix Lestrange? Lucius Malfoy?” And then she really laughed. “Voldemort?”

   “I tried,” Sarah croaked, but her belly felt like it was full of lead.

   The ghost pulled a face of mock sympathy. “I’m sure Seamus Finnigan knows that,” she bleated. Sarah screwed up her eyes, blinking the rainwater away and sucked in a breath.

   “Seamus?”

   “It was all your fault, his death,” whispered the other Sarah. “”You took his life away.”

   For whatever reason, Sarah lifted the hand with her wand in to her shoulder, and felt another hand already there. Hermione? she thought, was that her?

   “But he does know how hard I tried,” she said, clarity coming back to her. “Hermione spoke to him. He told us what to do – he’s looking after us.”

   “Because you killed him,” said the other Sarah with cool confidence. “He’s come to rescue you, because you couldn’t rescue yourself, just like he did when he died.”

   “I did everything I could!” shouted Sarah, feeling faint and dizzy. “And they didn’t keep me prisoner at the Ministry, I fought back, I saved myself, and I stopped the Wranglers!”

   “Too little,” scoffed the ghost. “Too late.”

   But the fear and horror Sarah had been feeling was slowly being replaced by hate and anger.

   “I helped save the school from Limbo too!” Sarah shouted back, feeling steadier on her feet. “I went after the Fixers on the train, I sent them back to Limbo!” Her insides felt like they’d been lit on fire, the confidence coursing through her once again. “You’re not real!” she shot at her doppelganger, moving away from the hand she’d felt holding her, towards the key on the floor. “You’re not me, you’re a liar!”

   _“Sarah!”_ somebody called, the word echoing just at the outer limits of her ears. _“Stab it!”_

   “You know there are realms where you don’t even exist,” cooed the other Sarah in her childish voice, undeterred. “You’ve been to one of them; where Harry is a hero, but you were never even born.”

   “Yeah,” snarled Sarah, flipping the leather cord around her fingers and exposing the tip of the tooth. “Unfortunately for you, this isn’t one of them.”

   She drove the tooth down, slamming it into the key on the ground. An explosion rocked the ground like an earthquake. The ghost screamed and writhed, clawing at the air as it melted into the concrete in a howl of wind and pulse of light. Sarah reeled backwards, shielding her eyes from the power twisting in the shrinking form of herself.  

   And then all was quiet.

   Sarah dropped to her knees, the tooth rolling from her hand as she swayed, blinking water from her eyes.

   “Sarah!” screeched a voice, and she looked up just in time to see Hermione flinging her arms around her. “You did it!” she gasped, her whole body shaking. “It’s over, you did it.”

Sarah found her weary arms lifting and managing to wrap around Hermione’s shoulders, clinging on to tendrils of tangled hair. “Yeah,” she shuddered, a smile creeping on to her split lips. “Yeah I guess we did.”

 

***

 

   Harry lost his balance in shock, and fell into the railing on the staircase. _“NO!”_ screamed Alex from the bottom of his lungs. He leapt towards the inferno, but Seamus grabbed him around the waist and hauled him back, just as Merlin dived forwards.

   A spectacular shower of magic exploded from his hands, putting up a barrier between them and the monster, even if for only a moment. “GO!” roared the small man, throwing up the same spell again. “I will try and hold back the Ifrit, you need to find Voldemort!”

   Alex was being held up, and back, by Seamus still, his face wet with tears and his whole body shaking. “He’s not dead, he can’t be, _let me go!”_

   The creature, an Ifrit Merlin had called it, growled so deep and menacing Harry felt the vibrations in his stomach. “Alex, I-”

   The Ifrit tried to swipe at them, but it couldn’t get far enough through the roaring wall of magic. “I can’t-” Merlin gasped, sweat running down his face. “Hold it much longer. Harry _must_ reach Voldemort before it is too late!”

   Harry glanced at Draco and Hermione, who both nodded. “We need to move,” Harry barked, feeling hideous for being so callous, but soft words and hugs were not going to get them through this. “Alex, you hear me? You follow me!”

   He waited only for Alex to meet his eyes, before he tore back up the stairs, away from the burning flames and the scene of Godric’s death. “Draco?” he called out, his feet pounding down the corridor. “Is there another way down?”

   “The house is all out of place,” Draco shouted back from behind, his breathing heavy. He needed to rest, Harry worried, he’d had a sword run through his gut, no matter how amazing Merlin’s healing skills were. That would have to wait though, just like everything else.

   Harry shook his head. “No time.”   He flung open the nearest window and aimed his wand out. _“Glisseo!”_ A ramp shot out from the wall, leading from the window down to the grass a floor below. “Everyone out, move!”

   A fireball flew up the steps, dispersing just a few meters away into the landing. Harry stood back and made Draco go first, followed by Hermione. Seamus all but pushed Alex out, the other’s Watcher’s face blank and not-seeing. “This is messed up,” said Seamus to Harry as he swung his leg over. More fire belched up the stairs though, so all Harry could do was shake his head in agreement. Seamus slid down out into the snowy night, and Harry jumped out after him, closing the window behind him.

   He hit the grass and rolled with an angry cry, and Seamus made the ramp vanish in a second. _“Protego,”_ snapped Draco, still visibly hurting but nonetheless able to throw up a shield charm around them. And for good reason.

   Harry quickly got to his feet, looking around. There were people running everywhere, weapons and spells clashing in a terrifying melee of noise, light and blood. After the catacombs of Germany, he had hoped never to see anything like that ever again in his life, but there they were, trying to huddle into the shadow Malfoy Manor was casting.

   “Oh no,” said Hermione, and Draco put his arms around her.

   “Godric’s forces,” said Seamus, taking in the scene with his jaw firmly set. “The Romans, Vikings and generally anyone not stitched together are with us, the rest are with Voldemort.”

   “Where did you leave Voldemort?” Hermione asked, her voice quavering.

   Harry looked around but they were on the wrong side of the house, and the fighting people were getting dangerously close to them. “In the graveyard,” he said. “by a weeping willow, but he might not still be there.”

   “It’s the best place to start,” said Draco, taking a deep breath, shaking out his limbs and holding his wand up in front of him.

   The noise around them seemed to bring Alex back to his senses, and for the first time since Godric was murdered he moved of his own accord. He grabbed Harry t-shirt, and looked straight into his eyes.  

   “You can do this, “ he breathed, his face shining in the moonlight. “I have every faith in you, so don’t you doubt you can end this, once and for all.”

   Harry nodded, fear and dread cold in his belly. “For Godric,” he said.

   “For everyone,” replied Alex.

   Seamus suddenly cried out and fired out a spell from his wand. One of the Rhansyk had evidently spotted them and charged, but fortunately Seamus had stopped him in time. Unfortunately, several other Rhansyk had now spied their little cluster, and were already barrelling towards them.

   Draco and Hermione moved to Seamus’ side, shooting out a volley of magic to tear the Rhansyk down. Draco’s slashing spell was good but only if he got a clean shot. Hermione and Seamus were sticking more with big, exploding sorts of curses. “We’ll cover you,” shouted Seamus as the three of them already began moving away from the house. “You need to make a run for it!”

   A group of wizards and Romans had noticed their plight and were already heading over to help, wands and swords at the ready. Draco looked over his shoulder once, and gave Harry a nod, before surging forward into the throng.

   Harry wanted to shout at them to stop, that they should stay together, but they had wasted enough time already. He grabbed Alex’s arm and the two of them ran around the trees and statues, away from his friends. His stomach flipped, worried for their safety, but no one would be safe if he couldn’t stop Voldemort.

   “You need to hide,” he told his Watcher as they stumbled to a halt behind a bush for a moment of peace.

   “What?” said Alex, taking Harry in and blinking rapidly. “No, no, what are you talking about I can’t leave you alone.”

   “This is my fight,” insisted Harry. “You’re not a wizard and you’re not a soldier, you’ll be a sitting duck.”

   Alex shook his head. “You need me, how else will you know if the Horcrux has been destroyed?”

   Harry couldn’t help but feel a flutter of gratitude in his chest. “I’ll just take my chances,” he said firmly.

   But Alex was still shaking his head, old tears pooling in his eyes but he didn’t seem to notice them now. “No, no,” he said again. “It’s my fault as much as yours this mess, I should have been able to fix it, to help you more-”

   Harry took his shoulder and interrupted him. “Alex,” he said. “You did all you could, I know that. And I’m not letting you kill yourself over guilt and grief.”

   “Kill myself?” Alex frowned, fixing Harry with a stare. “Whoever said anything about dying?” he asked, his right eyebrow twitching, a ghost of a smile at the edge of his lips. “I have no intention of doing something so stupid. Get me something I can swing.”

   Harry couldn’t help the smile on his own face. “If you’re sure?” Alex rubbed his fingers over his eyes and took a deep breath.

   “Couldn’t stop me if you tried,” he said, and nodded.

   Harry looked around, and grabbed a branch off of the nearest tree, ripping it off of the trunk. He stared at it, trying to think of the right transfiguration spell. _“Stipesium,”_ he said, hoping he was right, but he needn’t have worried. The branch thickened and changed, become a rough and unpolished, but very solid looking cricket bat. Alex took it with a watery grin.

   “Let’s go knock some heads.”

   The two bound from behind the shrubbery, and Harry threw a shield charm up over them both, just for good measure. Now they had moved away from the house, he could see into the graveyard again, lit up not just by moonlight but also a variety of spells being fired. He tried to glance through the clashing bodies for Draco, Hermione or Seamus, but everything was far too chaotic. He forced himself to let them go from his mind, just for now, and raced ahead.

   “Watch out!” Alex cried as a Rhansyk woman pounced, but even as he spoke he hefted the bat and connected so loudly with her head it let out a sound like thunder clapping. As she fell to the floor Harry hit her with a stunning spell as well just to be sure.

   “Nice aim,” he said as they weaved through the Malfoys’ topiary garden.

   Alex scoffed. “Any Englishman worth his salt should know how to handle a cricket bat,” he said with the upmost sincerity.

   The graveyard wasn’t far ahead, but it seemed like miles to Harry with the volume of people between them and it. The Romans he and Draco had met back at the big red tent were doing fine against the regular Rhansyk, but they were no match for the Death Eaters, or any others with magical ability.

   Harry tried to target them as best he could, replenishing his and Alex’s protection charm probably more often than was necessary, and gracing any of the Muggle soldiers they ran past with the same favour. “He’s that way!” one wizard in a green and pink robe shouted as they ran past, pointing Harry towards the weeping willow. Harry felt a thrill of hope, and even Alex looked encouraged as they sped on.

   A blossom of light from the manor caught his attention, and Harry couldn’t help but turn and look at what was left of the front of the building. The fire had spilled out onto the grass and gravelled path, the dark shadow of the Ifrit still visible, writhing in the flames. Harry felt his breath catch in his throat as people screamed and the house shook and worked loose windows and bricks, but there was a small figure also visible, wrestling with the fiery beast. Was Merlin still battling with the Ifrit, did he have it under control?

   Another Rhansyk came running out of nowhere, catching both Harry and Alex off guard. He was dressed in rags wielding two rusty, curved blades that slashed at Harry’s skin, one even managing to slice through his t-shirt, but Harry blasted him back, Draco’s slashing spell working just fine from only a foot away.

   “Is that where we’re headed?” asked Alex dubiously.

   Now they were closer, Harry could see there was a glow coming from near the weeping willow, and of jolt of fear shot through his guts. His feet sped up, dread giving him the energy he needed, Alex by his side without missing a step.

   Just as they were getting close enough to see what was actually happening, they were ambushed by several Rhansyk. Death Eaters joined by a man stitched into his own suit and another in a white curly wig wielding a judge’s gavel leapt from behind the gravestones bearing Harry’s parents’ names. Alex cracked one over the head with his bat before he even knew what had hit him, and Harry tried his best to tackle the rest. But there were a dozen deadly wizards all trying to take him down, and it was only a matter of seconds before one of them managed to successfully hit him back.

   As Harry slammed into the headstone he spent the briefest moment realising the Death Eater had not used the killing curse, but had merely stunned him. Confused he rolled out of the path of a second spell, knowing whatever luck or circumstance that had spared him probably wouldn’t last, and almost certainly would not protect Alex.

   The Watcher had managed to club a number of their assailants by the looks of their bloody noses, but now one of them had him in a Cruciatus Curse and he was screaming on the floor. Harry dodged a jet of red light as it soared over his head, and fired his own curse at the man pinning Alex down on the ground.

   “Over here!” yelled a voice, and Harry only just had time to look up to see the big Viking from the ship, Arnthor, come flying down from goodness only knew where to burry an axe in the same Death Eater’s chest.

   “Ha!” cried Alex shakily, managing to sit up as several more Vikings arrived to finish off the rest of the Rhansyk. He picked his bat up again and swiped it into the back of the last man’s knees, knocking him down for Arnthor to decapitate.

   Harry coughed as the stitched up bodies flaked apart in flaky clumps. “Cheers,” he said wearily. “I take it your captain doesn’t want to sell us anymore.” His felt his face drop. “Or are you here to kidnap us again?”

   “The warrior on the dragon offered us double our money,” said Arnthor coldly, cleaning his sword on his cloak and looking around at the rest of the battle ploughing on around them. “And my friend Falkor is dead.”

   “Oh,” said Harry. Helping Alex up to his feet, his hollow expression returned at the mention of Godric. “Sorry.”

   “He drinks finally in Valhalla with our brethren,” Arnthor boomed. “I envy him in his glorious death.” He gave out a cheer that the other Vikings joined in on, before they charged back into the battle.

   “I think he’s got the right idea,” said Alex, managed half a smile.

   “Come on,” said Harry, dread in his stomach. The area around the glowing light, which by now he figured had to be the portal, was densely guarded by a couple dozen Rhansyk. Arnthor and his warriors were running right for them, but Harry still didn’t see how he was going to get through.

   “Let’s circle around,” he said to Alex. “Away from the house, maybe the Vikings will give us enough of a distraction to get closer.”

   Alex nodded, his handsome face creased with concern. “Does that look open to you?” he asked, jutting his chin towards the light.

   “Just keep moving,” said Harry evasively. They could deal with that if they ever reached it. But an unusual sound stopped them both from moving. It was a dog barking.

   “Woofsy?” said Alex in confusion, and sure enough, within a few moments the little white puppy came charging out from the tree line, his fur looking greyish-cream against the whiteness of the falling snow. Alex dropped down to greet the dog, worry on his face. “What are you doing here, hey, shh!” The puppy was yelping and barking, hoping about, his head turned towards the sky. Harry was wary the noise would soon draw more Rhansyk towards them, but as his eyes swept the graveyard for foes he also found them glancing upwards, the same direction as Sir Woofsalot was looking.

“Is that a bird?” he asked.

   Alex suddenly stood up like his spine had been electrocuted. “Where?” he demanded, and Harry pointed. There was definitely some sort of bird flying unsteadily through the wind that was propelling the snow from the clouds, coming closer and closer to them.

   Alex spotted the creature, and his eyes widened as he gasped in a breath. “HERE!” he bellowed, waving his arms like a maniac. “Here, I’m over here!” He jumped up on a gravestone and wielded the cricket bat, snatching a nearby tree branch to help him get his balance. “Good pigeon, come he-”

   The first spell blasted him ten feet off the headstone without warning, the second took out the bird before Harry could even turn quick enough.

   “I don’t wish to kill you,” an unnervingly familiar voice said. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy hurting you.”

 

***

 

   Draco was starting to appreciate that this was a really bad idea. Neither he, Hermione nor Seamus had the magical ability to go up against this hoard of ruthless Death Eaters, and all he had left of Godric’s beautiful sword was a jagged stump he had only kept for sentimental reasons.

“Pray, keep near!” one of wizards who had banded with them cried as they pushed around the side of Malfoy Manor. The grounds were littered with creatures battling one another, blasts of light flashing into the night’s sky casting deep and fast changing shadows. “There is great evil here,” the wizard said. He was a flamboyant fellow dressed like something out of the Bayeux Tapestry, but his aim was good so Draco was sticking by his side.

   “What’s the plan?” Hermione asked, her voice coming out in a little squeak as they pushed ahead. The wizards they had with them were also being supported by several Romans too. Draco wasn’t sure what they’d done to earn themselves this honour guard, but he was extremely grateful. He still felt week and dizzy from having Voldemort run a blade through his innards, but every minute he was feeling better thanks to Merlin’s work. “We have a plan, right?”

   “Don’t die?” grunted Seamus, exploding the ground under a gaggle of Rhansyk charging them, blowing them and numerous gravestones into pieces.

   “Harry’s the priority,” said Draco, stepping aside as someone’s head came rolling towards them, splattering a trail of blood into the snow. He shuddered but managed to swallow the nausea back down. “We should try and find the portal, or Voldemort, or-”

   They were edging along with the house ten or so feet to their to their left, and the graveyard to their right. Draco could just about see the path he had left Harry to walk up when they’d split up, but the front of the house was still around the corner and out of sight. The torrent of fire that exploded out from it though was very much visible from where they were standing.

   “Whoa!” cried Seamus as the whole house shook perceptibly and they flailed to keep their balance on the ground. Draco’s jaw dropped as he watched windows burst and shatter, glass raining down on them as they shielded their heads. Bits of brickwork broke free, tumbling down in a dusty cascade.

   “What is that?” Draco cried. “Did one of our people do that?”

   “I think,” said Hermione, looking even paler. “Merlin might have lost his fight with the Ifrit.”

   “An Ifrit?” shouted one of the wizards.

   Draco nodded, his eyes straining to make any kind of shape out as people scattered around them. “If that’s the case,” he said. “We should really think about running.”

   “Where?” demanded Hermione. “This is Limbo, it can probably move around even easier than we can, and I am _not_ leaving anyone else behind again! Harry needs us.”

   “Okay, okay,” said Seamus as something, most likely the Ifrit, roared and more trees and grass caught alight. “We stand our ground, stick with the plan, find the portal.”

   “Kill more critters,” grinned a witch in a Stetson with a wand in one hand and a heavy looking pistol in the other.

   “Definitely!” agreed Seamus as a fresh wave of Rhansyk came tearing towards them, weapons and wands at the ready.

   Draco and the medieval wizard managed to take down a couple, but then Draco spotted something that caught his attention. “Take heed you fool!” the wizard scalded, throwing up a shield over both of them and blasting the Rhansyk away.

“Sorry,” breathed Draco, grabbing Hermione’s sleeve. He pointed out across the graveyard towards a tree with long hanging branches. “What does that look like to you?”

   “A weeping willow?” she said, distracted as a feral looking child threw himself at the group trying to bite anything he could reach.

   “No,” said Draco, jostling as the group shifted, moving closer to the burning debris near the front of the mansion. He grimaced, he wound flaring up and sending pain through his guts. “Next to it,” he said, catching his breath as the pain subsided. “That purple light?”

   “Portal?” suggested the witch with the gun.

   “Portal?” said Hermione.

   Draco found a grim smirk pulling at his mouth. “Portal.”

   “This way!” Seamus instructed to the group, steering them away from the house and into the cemetery. But something else was moving away from the house, something large and fiery.

   “Keep away!” Draco yelled as the Ifrit moved from around the front of what was left of the manor. “Don’t let it near you!”

   Several of the Rhansyk around them took one look at the creature and whooped, pointing at the groups of wizards and soldiers they were battling. “Get rid of ‘em!” one Death Eater cried cheerfully.

   The Ifrit looked down, and Draco suddenly realised there was a small figure stood close enough to it that they should have been burnt by the flames, but hadn’t been. The Ifrit paused, looked back at the Death Eater that had shouted at him, then lashed out with eye-watering speed to slice him up like pepperoni.

   Draco felt his arms fall by his side in shock, and then it was the Vikings’ turn to cheer. “Is it…” said Seamus, looking equally dumbfounded. “On our side now?”

   “Look!” said Hermione, pointing at the shadowy figure as the Rhansyk screamed and turned on their heels. The figure was a man, Draco thought, small and definitely communicating with the Ifrit as it took another slow step forwards, leaning over and smashing a Rhansyk who’d dared stand up to it flat into the dirt.

   “It’s Merlin!” Draco breathed, relief making him dizzy. “He must have got control of it!”

   They watched as a few of the Rhansyk tried again to charge the fire demon, but the Ifrit turned it’s troll-like head, snarled like an avalanche, and blasted them back with breath so hot it made the air shimmer and burned the stitches right out of their melting flesh.

   “Okay,” said Seamus cheerfully. “He seems to have a hold on that, how about we get to that portal?”

   “Agreed!” shouted the Roman who appeared to have the highest rank. “Press forward troupes, to the light!”

   “To the light!” roared the men.

   “Yey,” added Hermione with as much enthusiasm as she could whilst swaying on her feet.

   “You should get out of here,” said Draco as they began charging between the gravestones. “Find a place to hide.”

   “Oh do give it a rest,” replied Hermione with a smile, but still took his hand as the two of them ran around a large monument with a lion on the top.

   Just because the Ifrit was picking off the Rhansyk had not depleted them as much as Draco would have liked. There was still a large number of the creatures running round the cemetery trying their best to stop Godric’s forces. And as the group moved closer to the purple light the denser the Rhansyk seemed to be.

   “They’re protecting it,” said Draco, looking at the oval disk of purple light.

   “So this must be the right way,” said Seamus.

   It was hard to see through the bodies, but Draco was pretty certain there was someone standing in front of the portal. If he’d been a gambling man he would have made a wager as to who it was, but even then it wouldn’t have been fair.

   “Bellatrix is still working on the portal!” he cried out to whoever was listening. “It’s not open yet!”

   “But,” said Hermione, spells flying from her wand. She was sticking to the basics but she was doing them expertly, lighting the Rhansyk on fire or putting them in a body bind for the Romans to deal with. “I thought we killed Bellatrix?”

   “This is the other one,” said Draco. “The one Harry killed in Germany.” He was pushing through friend and foe, but the fighting was becoming too intense, he couldn’t take a step without having to aim a hex, and some of the Rhansyk weren’t going down as easily as the others.

   He growled as a stitched up Quidditch player swung a broomstick at his head. The style of robes suggested he was from the sixties but beyond that Draco didn’t recognise him, he was too busy ducking.

   “ _Petrificus Totalus!”_ shouted Hermione, blasting the player back into the path of the gunslinger, who was rather enjoying herself ‘yeehaw-ing’ and popping her pistol with loud, smoky bangs.

   “Thanks,” said Draco.

   “Come on,” Hermione replied, taking his hand again. “We have to stop Bellatrix, stop the portal.”

   Draco nodded and caught Seamus’ eye. His Watcher’s gaze took in the pair, and their intention towards Bellatrix. “Go,” he barked. “We’ll cover you!”

   The Romans didn’t even need to be given a direct order, they spun outwards as one, demanding the Rhansyk’s attention, and Draco darted around the weeping willow, Hermione at his side. He pressed his hand to his stomach, feeling the tender flesh, and inhaled. “Follow my lead,” he said, but Hermione scowled.

   “We do this together,” she said as they slowed. She was white as a ghost, sweating and trembling, but there was still something steely to her voice.

   The bendy branches were sweeping along in the breeze and the snow, masking Draco and Hermione from Bellatrix, but also vice-versa. He knew where he’d seen her standing, so just took a guess at where to aim. _“SECTUMSEMPRA!”_

   There was a high pitched scream, but Draco knew he’d not hit her, not fatally at any rate. But he’d given away their location and several other Rhansyk turned their attention their way. Hermione barely seemed to draw breath she was firing so fast, but her aim wasn’t great and she maybe only hit true with about half her shots. Draco figured half was better than none though as he shot over his shoulder and pushed through the willow branches.

   “Hold them back!” he heard Bellatrix scream. “I nearly have it!”

   “NO!” bellowed Draco, lurching forward as Hermione gave up aiming and just let lose her perfected Expulso hex, destroying the frozen ground and levelling several headstones. In that moment, Draco was able to leap through to the other side of the tree, firing wildly. Bellatrix was concentrating too much on the portal, and the spell clipped her shoulder, sending her spinning.

   _“Protego!”_ she cried as she crashed to the floor, stopping Draco’s follow-up hex from hitting her chest. _“Avada Kedavra!”_

   The killing curse missed Draco by inches, but the shock made him stumble backwards to the ground. Bellatrix rolled and aimed for the portal again, a stream of muttered words coming out her mouth. Hermione was just the other side of the branches, Draco could tell, but her shriek sent fear through his heart. _“Impedimenta!”_ he shouted, firing past her at the moving shapes.

   “Not me!” Hermione yelped, tumbling out of the tree. “Her, stop HER!”

   Time seemed to slow down. As Draco turned, the slashing spell exploded again from his wand, he had a moment, just a moment, to see the look of triumph on Bellatrix’s face before the light tore through her patchwork body.

   “Nugh!” she exhaled as she fell. Hermione was blasting back the couple of Rhansyk still fighting through the willow, but Draco scrabbled up, trying to reach his aunt. But her wand was already up, the patronus blooming.

   “Master!” she gasped, her stitching unravelling before Draco’s eyes. “The portal, it’s complete, but you must hurry, they are overwhelming us!”

   The patronus, some sort of insect Draco thought, shot out into the night. “No!” Draco cried again, diving for it, but of course the silvery shape vanished into the ether.

   Bellatrix was laughing, even as her body fell apart. “We have won,” she cackled, before her rotting flesh collapsed in on itself, and she was reduced to mulch.

   Draco didn’t think, he just jumped, turning his back on what was left of Bellatrix, back once again at Hermione’s side. But she was just stood panting, looking between the tree, the portal, and the Rhansyk remains. “I got them,” she said. “I think, I just kept blowing stuff up until it stopped moving.” Draco looked, and the tree was indeed at an odd angle.

   “We were too late,” he said. “It’s open, we need to warn Harry, the Watchers, anyone.”

   Their heads were already snapping around, on the search for allies. The fighting seemed more concentrated now, in odd pockets rather than all over the graveyard. Were they winning, were they losing?

   “Over there!” cried Hermione, pointing. Across from them and the house, near the forest, a group of fighters had become visible from around the tree.

   “I see them!” said Draco, breaking into a run, having recognised their motley crew from before. “Hey guys!” he called, but they were too ensconced in their fighting to notice.

   Draco thought their numbers might have dwindled, but he wasn’t certain. Movement to their left caught his eye, and a figure stumbled out of the tree line.

   “Harry!” a voice called, but Draco’s insides dropped.

   “NO!” he bellowed, trying to make his feet run faster. “NO, IT’S NOT-!”

   But the jet of green light was already flying through the air, and hit its target with deadly force.

 

***

 

   Harry’s wand jerked towards the sound of the voice, but it spoke again before he could cast any magic. “Uh uh uh,” it said, stepping out of the shadows, and Harry stopped.

   The first thing he was able to take in was that the other person’s wand was pointed right at Alex, who was folded, barely conscious on the snowy ground about ten feet away. Harry would never be able to get a shot off before Alex got hit, so he stalled.

   The second thing he realised, was that he was looking at himself.

   “Hello Harry,” the mirror version of himself said. “I’m quite surprised to see you.”

   “Voldemort,” said Harry tightly. This was too early, he hadn’t been given enough time, he didn’t know what had happened to the Horcrux. He glanced at Alex, shuddering and pushing himself up slowly from the ground.

   “That’s quite far enough,” said Voldemort, using Harry’s voice, even easing his glasses back up his nose like Harry always did as he lazily swished his wand and slammed Alex into the nearest gravestone, wrapping chains around him like a boa constrictor. “Lower your wand, and I won’t damage your friend too badly.”

   Harry glowered, his blood boiling in his veins, but he did as he was told. Where were the Vikings, or the Romans, or anyone who wasn’t a Rhansyk? But it felt like that battle was happening a hundred miles away now, and they were all alone.

   Voldemort stepped closer to him, and Harry saw a flash of red through his green eyes, like the sheen of an oil slick. “You took my body,” he said through clenched teeth.

   “Yes!” said Voldemort cheerfully. “Honestly I had no idea if it would work or not, but I really didn’t think that _this_ would be the result.” He approached Harry and looked him up and down in fascination. “You’ve been evicted, haven’t you?” he said, his mouth twitching with a smile.

   “Let my friend go,” said Harry as calmly as he could. “This has nothing to do with him, it’s between you and me.”

   “Oh how clichéd,” Voldemort scalded with a tut. “You couldn’t come up with something a little more original?”

   Harry had never seen (or rather heard, as he was effectively looking at himself) Voldemort so cheerful. It gave him a deep, dark sense of foreboding.

   “Kill me if you want, but he’s a Watcher, you need him don’t you?” argued Harry, remembering what the others had said about the Watchers being locked up in that ballroom. “You need him to keep my universe functioning.”

   Voldemort bobbed Harry’s head. “Yes, but he doesn’t necessarily need all his limbs to do that.”

   Harry inhaled and threw a look at Alex, who was awake, more or less, but very pale.

   “And I can’t kill you, Bellatrix and I have had a think. We need you.”

   Harry scoffed. “Do you now?” he said, scathingly. “What more can I possibly give you? You have my body, you don’t need me.”

   “Oh no,” said Voldemort smiling and taking another step closer. “But I do. You see, I need your body to travel the Multiverse, but this,” he raised his arms to the falling snow. “Is my home now, and while here, I very much would like to take the form I have grown so accustomed to over the years.” He winked, and Harry’s stomach flipped. “There’s nothing quite like your own body, hey.”

   “So?” spat Harry.

   “So,” replied Voldemort, purposefully lengthening the word. “When I get out to stretch my legs, I’ll need you to pop back in here in the meantime, keep it occupied. A dead body isn’t going to be much use to me now, is it?”

   “And if I refuse?” Harry asked.

   Voldemort raised an eyebrow, and turned to Alex.

   Even though they were several feet away, Harry could see the chains tightened visibly, and Alex started making a horrible choking noise. “STOP!” cried Harry, lurching forwards, and in the blink of an eye Voldemort’s wand was moved from Alex’s direction to be aimed at Harry’s heart. “Don’t hurt him,” he breathed. “I’ll…I’ll do what you want,” he said begrudgingly.

   “I have been dead a thousand years Harry Potter!” his Watcher yelled, not looking at Voldemort. “Don’t you dare put me before the entire Multiverse!” But Harry stood down.

   Voldemort smirked. “So predictable,” he said, and Alex suddenly gasped a full lung of air, slumping back against the grave. Harry wished he could say he scarcely knew the man, that Voldemort could do what he wanted with him, that protecting the Multiverse was more important. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even entertain the notion.

   “I think,” Voldemort continued. “I’ll make a little collection to keep you in line. Find all your friends, pop them in a box, and poke them every time you disobey.” He grinned as nausea rolled over Harry.

   “No,” he said quietly, but he knew there was nothing he could do.

   “Harry, Harry,” the Dark Lord admonished. “You’re not seeing this for the adventure this is. No one in the history of all the universes has ever done what we’re about to do, doesn’t that excite you!”

   “People are dying,” said Harry flatly. “And I’m sure millions more will die too. So, no, I’m not really that excited.”

   “Harry!” Alex yelled, but Harry raised the flat of his palm to stop him without even looking.

   “Alex!” he shouted back, eyes to the ground and teeth grinding. “Don’t give him any more excuses to hurt you!”

   “Yes, but,” the Watcher said, and the chipper tone of his voice made both Harry and Voldemort’s identical heads snap his way. Through the half a dozen rows of graves Harry could see Alex sat on the ground still, but his puppy, Sir Woofsalot was back and wagging his tail, a dead pigeon dropped in his master’s lap. “You see,” cried Alex, a big grin on his face. “I’ve had a spot of _mail._ It’s from _your sister.”_ He was waving a scrap of paper between his fingers, bound by his legs, but the glee on his face was all too clear.

   The Horcrux was destroyed.

   Harry didn’t even pause. In the split second it took him to get Alex’s meaning, he was already drawing breath and turning. He had no time to doubt, only time to trust.

   _“Stupefy!”_ he roared, just as Voldemort began to react.

   Dumbfounded, Harry’s eyes followed as his doppelganger was blasted of his feet and went careering into the air, sailing twenty feet away at least. “Whoa,” he said, before realising he probably only had seconds to act and ran towards Alex. _“Relashio!”_ he cried as he neared, and the chains dropped away in a shower of red sparks. “Did you see that!”

   Alex scrambled to his feet with Woofsy bounding around his feet. “Told you,” he said with a wink, before throwing himself on Harry and knocking them both to the ground. The angel statue by them exploded in a hail of stone and flames.

   Voldemort had obviously not taken long to recover from Harry’s spell, no matter how hefty it was. “Get out of here,” Harry shouted, already pushing himself back onto his feet. “You’ve done your bit, now get to safety!”

   He looked around, but Voldemort had obviously taken cover and wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so Harry did the same and ducked behind the gravestone Alex had been tied to. “Do that door thing, go back to your house.”

   Alex looked hurt. “But,” he said, Sir Woofsalot jumping into his arms. “I can’t just leave you.”

   “This is my fight,” said Harry. “You’ve already helped more than I ever could have asked for.” He held out his hand, and Alex took it, giving it a tight squeeze.

   Woofsy yelped, and Harry nodded. The two men dropped hands, and Harry broke into a run, dashing between graves of his friends and family, back towards where he’d left Voldemort.

   The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and Harry threw up a shield charm before he even knew why. Voldemort’s curse hit him square on, but the protection held and Harry only found himself stepping back a couple of feet. “What IS this!” roared Voldemort, firing again, but Harry was already retaliating. The Dark Lord had revealed his location from within the tree line, and Harry was aiming everything he could think of as he darted between the tombs.

   “This is the end,” said Harry, pressing his back into the bark of a silver birch. It didn’t give him much cover, but his shield charm was holding so strong he almost didn’t need the wooden barrier. He chanced a look over his shoulder and spotted Voldemort moving further into the forest; he took the time to breath and aim, before shouting _“Expulso!”_

   Several of the trees caught fire as the ground erupted, but Voldemort wasn’t giving up easily. He quelled the flames immediately in one breath before ripping numerous branches off the smouldering trees with a severing charm. He rose them up like a flock of birds, pointing at Harry. _“Oppugno!”_ he bellowed.

   They exploded through the air, and Harry dropped to the ground. _“Terramurus!”_ he cried, and the ground shot up to form a wall in front of him, stopping the makeshift arrows in their tracks. “Voldemort!” he yelled out, edging to peek around his temporary wall. “You’re never getting through that portal, just give me my body back!”

   “Simply because,” Voldemort snarled back in Harry’s voice. “You have yourself some borrowed power, does NOT mean you are in any position to bargain.”

   Harry felt his wall crumbling rapidly next to him, and darted out before it was gone completely. Another spell followed him out, but Harry was already firing too. _“Confringo!”_

   Instantly, a dozen or more trees caught alight, despite the dampness from the snow. Harry stumbled backwards, the blaze taking hold and spreading rapidly. _“Aguamenti!”_ he heard Voldemort shouting, dousing the flames with jets of water, and while he was distracted Harry took his chance to get deeper into the woods.

   The fires were raging, making it hard to see anything between the flickering movement of flames and smoke, but the spark of his wand gave his position away as Voldemort battled the inferno.

   _“Sectumsempra!”_ Harry tried, but as powerful as the spell undoubtedly was, Voldemort was able to spin out the way and instead it hit one of the fiery trees, slicing it clean in half and sending it crashing to the ground, igniting a number of other trees as it fell.

   Harry berated himself, and was glad the spell had not found its target. This wasn’t some Rhansyk he was aiming at, it was _his own body._ He needed to be more careful.

   _“IMPERIO!”_ Voldemort roared, but he was firing blindly. Harry was practically hidden by the forest fire, and he wasn’t loudly throwing bright curses around to advertise his location like Voldemort was. Instead he dashed through the foliage, trying to get a better angle to aim from, but Voldemort’s wild shots were keeping him on his toes. It might not be long before he hit Harry by sheer luck.

   He needed to incapacitate Voldemort, but he didn’t see how he could do that without hurting him. Harry was stronger and more powerful thanks to the Horcrux’s destruction, but Voldemort was still a formidable and ruthless wizard, and he was currently cutting a swathe through the forest, ranting and raving. _“POTTER!”_ he bellowed, spells firing through the air. Harry was dripping sweat from the intensity of the heat. He continued moving through the branches, trying to keep away from the flames but they were catching almost quicker than he could run.

   “You will pay for this!” continued Voldemort, but Harry didn’t turn to see where he was. He could tell he wasn’t that far away but the fire was acting as cover for them both. “You should have just complied, this didn’t have to be difficult!”

   Harry snorted. “Yeah okay,” he said, more to himself. “Why don’t you do the easy thing and just return my body?”

   “Oh,” breathed Voldemort, almost growling. “Oh no, you see I need it. I need it to travel through the portal, and there’s one universe in particular I’m _very_ keen on visiting first.”

   Harry suddenly felt a child despite the raging flames. “No,” he said.

   “Yes!” crowed Voldemort. “Your precious school, everyone you love, everyone you’ve ever met, that’s ever helped you. They will _beg_ for mercy before I am through!”

   “NO!” Harry bellowed, firing the slashing spell again, felling several trees around their heads.

   He heard more than saw Voldemort shout and throw himself out of the way. Harry himself had managed to dive by some rocks that offered him some protection, but the flames were latching on to anything combustible and racing through the forest still. Harry coughed, his eyes watering, but he didn’t dare to use a spell to clear the flames away. Where he’d cut the trees down the landscape was suddenly a lot clearer, and he didn’t want to give his location away before he found Voldemort first.

   He didn’t have long to wait before The Dark Lord was dousing the fires with jets of water and levitating the fallen trunks up in the air and throwing them aside with vicious intent. “For every minute,” he snarled and Harry scrambled down a small embankment. “Of my time you waste, I will be killing one of your friends. In Limbo, in your universe, or any other I find them, their blood will be on your hands!” He grinned, a feral look that Harry did not recognise on his own face. “I think we’re up to about ten now, but perhaps my watch is fast?”

   Harry roared and leapt up, wand in hand. _“Stupify!”_ But Voldemort was waiting for him and deflected the stunning spell.

   _“Imperio!”_ he screamed again, but Harry too was able to shun it. “We could go on like this all day,” said Voldemort, a little breathless. “But eventually I will win, and it won’t be my friends that will be dying.”

   Harry didn’t reply, he just shot out another stunning spell that Voldemort deflected again.   He was right of course, they were pretty evenly matched and the sparring might go on all day. But that didn’t mean Harry was about to give up. His magic had never been more potent, and he might just get lucky.

   A silvery shape tore through the orange glow, catching Harry’s eye despite his best intentions. It wasn’t large, but he could feel the power coming from it as it came to a halt, and latched onto one of the burning trees. “Master!” the patronus cried in Bellatrix’s voice. Harry could just make out its scorpion shape, larger than it would have been in real life, it’s tail twitching and making Harry’s stomach flip. Bellatrix’s voice sounded distressed and she was panting. “The portal, it’s complete, but you must hurry, they are overwhelming us!”

   The small creature vanished into a wisp of bluish smoke, but Voldemort was already grinning manically. “I guess we will have to continue this another time,” he said to Harry, pleasantly.

   “No,” Harry breathed, and the two locked eyes for just a moment. Voldemort turned on the spot, and Harry cried out, but just like Seamus had described, the Apparation failed and Voldemort roared in frustration.

   Harry lunged, no real plan, just to get to Voldemort. But The Dark Lord wasted no time into breaking into a run, using Harry’s young, strong legs to send him tearing through the woods. But Harry had the same legs, and thanks to his soul-like status his weren’t tired from trekking through campsites, deserts, jungles and cities, and he found himself gaining.

   The portal, he thought as he ran. Perhaps that was the answer? Perhaps he’d been going about this all the wrong way by chasing after Voldemort, why hadn’t he just gone to the portal, shut it down? If Voldemort couldn’t go anywhere, they would have more time to pry him out of Harry’s body. He tried to steady his breathing as he forced his legs to move even faster, spells firing from his wand, breaking up the ground in front of Voldemort as they sprinted back towards Malfoy Manor.

   Harry blasted at the ground again, tearing it up under Voldemort’s shoes, forcing him to leap and roll in order to stay afoot. _“Incarcerous!”_ he yelled, trying to sling a length of rope around his ankles, but Voldemort disintegrated it before it could reach him.

   The ground Harry had disturbed was having aftershocks, and the earthquake was rippling outwards. Harry scrambled over the dirt and rocks, levitating them out of his way where possible, trying to keep his lead closing in on Voldemort. The burning trees were thinning and Harry was starting to make out gravestones again, and there, by the weeping willow, was a glowing oval of purple light.

   Voldemort picked up his pace, but so did Harry. The sounds and sights of the battle were becoming apparent again, and Harry’s heart skipped a beat as he glimpsed several wizards duelling with the Rhansyk Death Eaters through the trees.

   “Harry!” a voice shouted as Voldemort burst out into the open. Harry tried to move his legs faster, but he still had several feet before he would reach the tree line.

   “NO!” he screamed, hoping whoever had called him would hear, would understand, but Voldemort had already raised is wand, firing a green jet of light. The fear and horror gave Harry an extra burst as he powered out into the open, not daring to look over where the wizards were duelling, or at who was now collapsed on to the snowy ground. His entire focus was on the portal hanging unguarded, the disintegrating form of Bellatrix Lestrange slumped underneath.

   Voldemort was only a few feet away, five, three, he leapt…

   _“FINITE INCANTATEM!”_ Harry bellowed, throwing everything he had at the portal just as Voldemort hit the purple light.

   An explosion erupted, tearing through the air in a ball of fire and noise, sweeping Harry off his feet and hurtling him backwards to smack into a smouldering tree. There were a multitude of screams and shouts as anyone near enough was sent careering away from the epicentre, crashing into gravestones and slamming through the frozen dirt. Harry dropped to the ground like a bag of rocks, throwing his arms up instinctively as the blast ran its course.

   Within seconds he felt the air stilling, and he was twisting over, pushing his knees underneath himself to stand, to run. People were still shouting, he couldn’t tell who was friend or foe, but as the dust settled, Harry slowed, looking at the ground in front of where the portal had been.

   The willow’s slender branches trailed in the quietening breeze, like they were reaching out for where the purple light had been shining. But Harry’s attention was on the prone figure lying motionless by the marble headstone that bore his mother’s name. His heart was starting to beat faster, he didn’t understand? He heard someone calling his name, but it was faint and easy to ignore as he came to the body, and turned it to over.

   “Voldemort,” he said, looking down at the white, snakelike face that had haunted his nightmares for so long. He was himself again. His head was at a strange angle, the neck all crooked, and Harry looked up at the gravestone to see some of the snow had been swiped away from the force of the impact.

   Harry stood, letting Voldemort roll away again. His heart was like a drum, banging the blood through his veins as his legs moved stiffly forwards. His eyes were scouring the ground, looking for anything, any sign that another figure was lying on the floor. If Voldemort was no longer in it, _where was his body?_

   Had he popped back in it automatically? Harry thought, rolling his shoulder to see if he felt the pain again, but there was nothing. Surely he would have noticed if he’d been able to reclaim his body, even with the explosion?

   “Harry!” the voice cried again, and he was so confused and panicky he didn’t know what else to do but look up. Draco and Hermione were running towards him, and were throwing their arms around him before he even knew what had happened. Hermione was crying, sobbing, her body shaking against Harry’s. “Are you okay?” asked Draco, pulling away to look at him.

   Harry just stared. “I don’t-” he stammered. “I don’t know.” His head turned, like a magnet being drawn north, back to Voldemort’s dead body. “I don’t know what happened.”

   Draco stared too, and Hermione pulled her wet face away from harry t-shirt, confusion calming her cries.

   “Are you…back in your body?” she asked, looking Harry up and down.

   He swallowed, unable to look away. “I don’t know,” he said again.

   A roar broke through his stupor, and after blinking several times he twisted his head to look out into the graveyard. A lot of people seemed to be running away, and Harry couldn’t blame them.

   The Ifrit was plodding between the headstones, Merlin by its side, swiping with its claws and shooting out fire. Harry gasped and snatched up his wand, but Draco and Hermione both leapt for his hand.

   “It’s on our side!” cried Draco.

   Sure enough, as Harry watched, the fiery beast snagged the butcher Rhansyk with his cleaver in his head, and ripped him apart as easily as he had done Godric.

   “Merlin’s instructing it,” said Hermione flatly.

   “Oh,” said Harry, his ears ringing. The battle seemed to be over, but it wasn’t giving him any peace of mind. “Uh, Alex, Seamus,” he said, trying to work out what to do. “Where are they? Maybe they’ll know what happened?”

   Hermione started shaking again, her arms wrapping around herself as fresh tears spilled down her face. Draco closed his eyes and inhaled, putting his arm on her shoulder. “Over here,” he said quietly, and turned.

   Back to where Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra had fired.

   Seamus Finnigan was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his hands placed on his chest. Sat next to him, nursing a bruised and bloody jaw, was Alex. His gaze was unwavering as they approached, locked on Seamus’ still face.

   “Oh no,” said Harry. It was like no time had passed at all as he dropped to his knees, taking one of Seamus’ hands. They might as well have been back in that forest in Germany.

   “He’s gone,” said Alex through a clenched throat. “The only thing keeping him here is our memory of him.”

   “I’m so sorry,” said Harry, a coldness washing over him.

   “I know,” said Alex, his voice catching. Sir Woofsalot was lying in his lap, and occasionally his little white paw would reach out and pat Seamus on the arm. “It’s okay boy,” Alex said to him, picking him up in one hand and cradling him next to his chest.

   “Harry killed Voldemort,” said Draco dispassionately, he too apparently unable to look away from his former Watcher. “But he doesn’t look like Harry anymore.”

   Alex sighed heavily, and drew a scrap of paper from the inside pocket of his tailcoat. It was a crumpled paper airplane. “I know,” he said again, and he raised his glassy eyes to meet Harry’s.

   Harry looked back over in the direction of Voldemort’s body, but Alex couldn’t have seen it from where he was sat. Cassius, the Roman general, was moving through the graveyard barking orders at his men. Most of the Rhansyk had vanished or already been taken care of, but the centurions were keeping themselves busy mopping up the few that were left. “How do you know?” Harry asked, turning back to see that Alex was holding the airplane out for him to take.

   Harry felt Draco and Hermione’s eyes on him as he took it, dread welling up in his guts as he unfolded the creases. There was only a few, hastily scribbled lines in a note addressed to Alex, and Harry read them over and over. “I don’t understand,” he said when his voice finally agreed to work again.

   “He’s a Watcher called Charlie, his universe is similar to yours but without any magic.” Alex was back to staring at Seamus, his eyes not lifting to meet Harry’s again. “They all knew what was happening here after being locked up in that ballroom, so they were on alert. He sent me that right away.”

   “What does it say?” asked Hermione, her voice a little more than a croak, but Harry couldn’t move or respond. He just found his hand closing over the paper.

   “I guess Bellatrix picked a universe at random,” Alex continued, a tear falling silently down his face. “Or maybe she fancied a Muggle hunt, who knows. But that was where the portal was directed when Voldemort jumped through.”

   “And I ended the spell,” said Harry. All he felt now was cold, the snow in his hair, the wind on his skin.

   “Right as he was making the Dimensional Leap,” said Draco.

   Hermione gasped, a shuddery, broken sound. “No.”

   “The portal collapsed around him,” said Alex, his jaw clenching. “So the soul was forced to stay in Limbo. But your body…” He grimaced and brought his head up with some effort to face the three teenagers. “Your body carried on through, landing in a field in Scotland where Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was never built. And without a soul, that means…”

   “That means,” said Harry slowly, the reality finally settling in his heart. “That means that I’m dead.”


	17. Requiem For A Dream

Epilogue -

   Requiem For A Dream

 

Clint Mansell

 

   Hermione knew there were a lot of people moving and shouting around her, but she was too exhausted to do anything but cling to Sarah, elation and relief making them both shake, laugh and cry all at once. “You did it,” she said again to the younger girl, but she felt her shake her head.

   “We did it, all of us. Together.”

   There was a noise like a cat being strangled that startled Hermione into looking up, but her vision was obscured almost immediately by a body throwing himself on top of her and Sarah.

   “Oh my girls!” shrieked Terry Boot as the three of them tumbled down in a heap. “Oh my brilliant, beautiful, lunatic girls!” Sarah was laughing as he rolled her over and gave her a loud, messy kiss on the cheek, before squirming around and doing the same to Hermione.

   He pulled away, and his grin faded slightly, his eyes bright and locked with hers only a few inches away.

   “Are you okay!” Sarah cried, throwing her arms around him in a hug and breaking his gaze. Hermione felt her cheeks were hot but just put it down to her raging fever.

   “Me?” scoffed Terry, sitting back down in the rain. “You don’t think turning into a zombie is going to slow me down?”

   “I know it did!” replied Sarah playfully, nudging under his arm for another hug.

   Hermione looked around at the rest of the Muggles, and felt her good mood fading slightly. They were so confused, crying and panicking as they wandered around in the deluge. She moved her hands to try and stand, and found her palm resting on something lumpy.

   It was the key necklace, she realised, picking it up and looking at it in the moonlight. Now all the Death Eaters had vanished she thought it was probably a good idea not to use magic, so pocketed her wand and squinted instead. It was still sort of key shaped, miraculously, but looked like it had been melted down and twisted back into someone’s drunken idea of what a key might look like, if the door it was intended for was crooked. And perhaps upside down.

   The heavy, oppressive weight of the living Horcrux inside was gone, it was just a bit of jewellery again. Thinking of her doppelganger, Hermione gave a little smile and slipped it back around her neck, hoping the other Hermione would appreciate it for what it was worth.

   “I wonder where my family are?” asked Sarah anxiously as Hermione tried once again to stand. Terry saw her struggling and moved to help her. If she was honest, he was still looking just as peaky as any of the other formally-cursed townsfolk, but together they managed to stand.

   “Hopefully,” said Terry. “They’ll still be by your house.”

   Sarah muttered something that sounded like “What’s left of it,” and rocked back onto her hands.

   Hermione suddenly picked up another noise over the rain, and jerked her head around. “What’s that?” she asked.

   Terry and Sarah both paused and listened too. “Sirens,” said Terry, glancing around.

   Hermione swallowed, her throat scratchy and dry. “Uh oh.”

   “The police!” one of the Muggles cried joyfully, and a few people cheered. But some were helping those with injuries they’d sustained in their zombie state.

   “Better send an ambulance instead,” said one man, causing others to nod. As the wailings grew in numbers though, Hermione thought all the three of the emergency services were probably on their way. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see the army rolling in as well given the wide spread devastation.

   “We need the Ministry,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “Now. If the police can get into the town past the wards, so can the Aurors, and we need to _Obliviate_ anything that moves!”

   The sirens seemed to be coming from all directions now, and more and more people were shouting. There were police officers with torches making their way up the playground from the road, and Hermione could see the bulky outlines of ambulances across the field, blue lights . People were flocking as the staff tried to calm them and Hermione heard the same question being asked from both sides: “Just _what_ is going on here?”

   A sudden movement caught her eye, and she turned to see a man in purple robes and pointy hat appear out of thin air. “Oh dear,” he said, grabbing onto his hat as the wind and rain threatened to take it from him.

   Several people screamed, but within a second a dozen of more witches and wizards had apparated into the playground and immediately began addressing the Muggles.

   “Oh thank goodness,” sighed Hermione, resting her hand on her chest.

   The Aurors were saying things like “It’s quite all right,” “We’re here to help,” “Would you like a cup of tea?” as they began leading people aside. As Hermione watched, Medi-Wizard tents popped literally up from the ground, and the medics themselves were running out with draughts of potions and wands waving. What she assumed to be senior agents were making a bee-line for the police, presumably to coordinate their efforts as much as was possible.

   Hermione was grinning, she couldn’t help it, and soon found herself in a three way hug with Sarah and Terry.

   “I think these guys have got this,” said Terry, looking down at Sarah. “We need to go look for your parents – and Ziggy – goodness knows what trouble he’s getting himself into as we speak.”

   “And Parvati,” said Hermione, matter-of-factly.

   “Hmm,” said Terry and Sarah together.

   “Granger?” a woman’s Scottish voice called. “Boot?”

   “Professor!” cried Hermione, whipping around. She would know that voice anywhere, and she felt even more lightheaded as she dashed over to where her Head of House was striding towards them, an enormous red and gold umbrella lofted above her head.

   “I have been worried sick!” scolded McGonagall as she threw her arm around Hermione when the two collided. “Where are Potter and Patel, what is happening here?”

   “We last saw them at the house,” said Sarah, stepping under the umbrella with Terry. The four of them fit quite comfortably, and none of the Muggles seemed to be noticing them anymore. “And my parents, but they were…”

   “They were under the Imperius Orbis Curse,” Hermione explained. “But now everyone’s okay.” She beamed. “Professor, I think you’ve met Sarah Potter, Harry’s sister.” She turned to face the younger girl. “And she just saved the whole universe.”

   “Sarah!” cried McGonagall as she got a good look at her. She grabbed the material at her chest like her heart was contracting, and the oversized umbrella teetered. “Oh thank Merlin!”

   Sarah looked a little sheepish. “It was a team effort,” she insisted, whilst Terry grabbed her and ruffled up her already tangled hair.

   “Where have you been?” fretted McGonagall, ushering Sarah towards her to get a better look. “What’s going on, the Ministry doesn’t seem to know a thing! Do your parents know you’re back?”

   “They were infected,” said Hermione, gesturing to the chaos around them. “Like Sarah said we last saw them at the house, but that was hours ago.”

   McGonagall surveyed the scene. The Muggles were being herded by the various magical organizations that had descended on the town of Godric’s Hollow since the Death Eaters’ wards had fallen. With a satisfied nod, she snapped out her wand and conjured a patronus. “Find Lily and James Potter,” she told the cat with square patches around her eyes. “Inform them we have Sarah back safe.”

   “You might want it to find Harry too,” said Terry.

   “And Sirius and Remus!” squeaked Sarah.

   “And Parvati,” said Hermione stubbornly. She earned herself an eye roll from Terry and Sarah, but no matter how obnoxious she was, Hermione felt the other girl had been part of their group and deserved to be found.

   “Very well,” said McGonagall to the silver cat. “Tell them we are…”

   “At the primary school,” supplied Sarah.

   “And waiting for them,” concluded the Head of Gryffindor.

   The Muggles either didn’t notice the silver cat zip out into the night, or they didn’t care. Hermione looked around as a big cheer and round of applause went up, and saw that the electricity had been restored to the lamp posts and shops across the road. Aurors were liaising with Muggle police detectives and paramedics, Hermione guessed they had been charmed already as they were cooperating in letting the witches and wizards take charge of the relief operation. Most of the Muggles seemed to be wrapped in blankets now and were gratefully standing under a big open-air marquee that had been set up on the grass.

   “How are they going to explain all this?” Hermione asked in disbelief.

   McGonagall waved her hand. “Toxins in the rain, the water supply, the air. There’s very little we can’t fob off on Muggle germ warfare these days sadly.”

   Terry nodded in wry agreement. “I’m sure these guys will be happy to forget all this anyway.”

   McGonagall scanned the crowd. “My good friend and colleague from the Ministry – a man named Kingsley – is on his way to us. He wants to fill in the blanks concerning your activities the past twenty four hours.” She peered over her glasses at Sarah. “And I’m sure he’ll be interested in where you’ve been the past week.”

   Hermione had a hundred thoughts fly through her head. What were they allowed to tell people in this universe? Who knew what already? Was it top secret like it had been in her world?

   “Um,” said Sarah, presumably having a similar thought process. “It’s complicated.”

   “Perhaps I could take a guess?” asked the Transfiguration teacher.

   Terry pulled an amused face. “If you guess this,” he said. “I will transfer into Gryffindor the second we get back to school.”

   “More of an educated guess,” said McGonagall kindly, and turned to Hermione, and reached into her robes pulling out a letter. “Could it be, Miss Potter, that you were in an alternate reality?”

   Terry’s mouth fell open. “You’d better get me some new robes,” he said disbelievingly.

   “Shh,” hissed Hermione, but McGonagall smiled and held the letter out for her.

   “It is quite alright, Miss Granger,” she said. “After the events of last November, Albus briefed me fully on the inter-dimensional escapades. This letter is for you I believe.”

   “For me?” she repeated, unsure.

   Her teacher nodded. “There was quite a ruckus in the library, and Irma found this on the floor. It was apparently the same spot Misses Brown and Turpin found you.”

   Hermione took it from her hand, and saw it had Harry’s and Ron’s names on the front too, and her heart leapt. “How’d you know it’s for me, not Harry?” she asked.

   “Well,” said McGonagall, averting her eyes. “It had become apparent you and Mr Potter were no longer reachable, and the Ministry could not gain access to the town.”

   “We did?” said Terry.

   “It seems a barrier was erected after your entrance,” said McGonagall simply, then turned once more to Hermione. “I was concerned for your safety, so I hope you will forgive me but I opened and read the letter.” She indicated that Hermione should do the same now. “After that,” she continued as Hermione prised the parchment from the envelope. “Matters became substantially clearer.”

   Hermione shook open the single page and recognised the writing immediately from years of criticised homework and damning reports. “Dear Mr Potter, Mr Weasley and Miss Granger,” she said aloud. “This is Professor Snape on behalf of Sarah Potter and Draco Malfoy.”

   She stopped and looked up at Sarah, as did Terry and McGonagall. “Ohh,” said Sarah, a big grin spreading over her face. “I think I know what that is! Keep reading.”

   Hermione did as she was told. “It seems something went wrong with the incantation intended to send them home, but by the time we have you safely back we should hopefully have rectified this mistake. Please activate this letter in order to facilitate your return journey. Yours sincerely, Prof. Snape.”

   Hermione looked up at McGonagall, as did Terry and Sarah. “So you read that,” said Terry dubiously. “And guessed alternate reality?”

   “It was the logical conclusion,” said McGonagall, and Terry pulled a face to suggest it was anything but. “Sarah and Mr Malfoy had been missing for some time, and I spoke with the Severus of this world who assured me he had not penned that letter. Obviously there is more to all of this than just that, but it was enough to go on.”

   “Good guess!” said Sarah excitedly. “It was the other Snape, from the world the other Harry came from. The one that rescued me from Germany.”

   McGonagall nodded at her. “I thought as much.”

   “So,” said Hermione. “This will just take me home, easy as that?”

   “Yes,” said their teacher. “But I have many questions first, namely why on Earth it has taken you so long to return, where is Draco, and just what had been going on in this town?” Hermione flinched at her stern tone. “But I will wait until Kingsley arrives so you do not repeat yourselves unnecessarily.”

   “Does he know as much as you?” asked Hermione. “About the dimensions and-” But before she could say any more she was silenced by several, raking coughs.

   “Miss Granger?” said McGonagall, sternness replaced by concern.   “Are you quite well?”

   “No,” said Terry, as Hermione tried to catch her breath. “She’s been getting worse and worse.”

   “Do you need to sleep?” asked Sarah.

   “Yes,” agreed McGonagall. “A rest may do you good.”

   “Oh no,” said Hermione, shaking her head rapidly. “There’s so much you need help with here, I’ll stay as long as you need me.” But even as she spoke she dissolved into another bought of coughing.

   “Perhaps you should get to a medi-wizard?” suggested Terry, worry in his voice.

   Hermione stepped out into the cold rain and let it sooth her burning forehead and tingling skin. “I’m not certain,” she said, admitting the thing she’d been suspecting for the past few hours. “But I don’t think it’ll help.”

   “Why not?” asked Sarah.

   “Because I don’t think it’s a virus making me ill,” she said. “I don’t think I have an infection. I think,” she said, stepping back under the umbrella and wiping her eyes clear. “That _I’m_ the virus, or infection, whatever you want to call it. I think I’m ill, because this body it rejecting me, my soul.”

   Terry crossed his arms. “After everything we’ve seen today,” he said. “This might sound a little unfair, but _that_ is ridiculous. You’ve got no reason to say that, it’s just a cold and you need a Pepper-Up Potion.”

   “I’d agree,” Hermione said with a shrug. “But Draco had a headache as soon as he arrived in my world as well, and then there’s the weather.”

   “What about it?” asked McGonagall.

   “Every time someone crosses dimensions, there’s thunder and lightning, rain and wind, all out of nowhere, in an instant. It’s like the elements are protesting the crossover. This storm was brewing in my world too, and then here it’s become out of control. I think the reality itself is physically rejecting me, as well as my body, and the longer I stay, the worse it’ll get.”

   “Then you have to go, now!” cried Sarah in concern.

   Hermione threw up her hands though, the letter still in her left one. “No, that’s not what I meant, I want to stay and help. I’m just…trying to explain why Pepper-Up probably won’t do much good.”

   “Doubt it’ll hurt,” said Terry stubbornly. “And I still don’t buy that the universe is trying to get rid of you with a bit of rain.”

   “A lot of rain,” argued Hermione. “And give it time I bet it would escalate, to a natural disaster like an earthquake. But,” she shrugged her shoulders. “It’s just a guess, based on the evidence I’ve seen. Professor, how about we find somewhere to sit down, and I can help you with some answers?”

   But McGonagall looked dubious. “Your concept does resemble a few in transfiguration theory,” she said, a frown encroaching on her features. “And results noted in some extreme cases of Occumlency over-use. You may be right.”

   “I don’t want you getting any sicker,” insisted Sarah, her hands fluttering over Hermione’s sleeves. “Terry and I probably know everything between us, we can explain to McGonagall and Kingsley, and Harry and the others know stuff too.”

   “Now they’re not zombies,” added Terry helpfully. “They’re probably on their way over right now.”

   “No,” protested Hermione, but her legs were feeling weak and she was struggling to stand. After her duel with Crouch she was even more exhausted and her throat was aching. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this ill, not even when she’d had Beijing flu a while back. She swallowed though. “No, I should explain, there should be a record of my events here, it should be documented.”

   “Hermione,” said Terry, taking both her shoulders in his hands. He looked down at her with those deep, brown eyes. “I’m not going to lie, it would have been nice to have you hang around when we we’re not being chased by zombies, or Death Eaters, or zombie Death Eaters. But the truth is Sarah and I have been with you almost the entire time you’ve been here, and Sarah knows everything that went on in your world and even some of the Limbo stuff.”

   “Limbo?” asked McGonagall.

   “I’ll explain later,” said Sarah with a wave of her hand.

   Terry closed his eyes, for just a second. “I thought we’d have more time,” he said. “But if what you and McGonagall are saying is true, then we don’t. So,” he paused. “Let’s just get this over with.”

   Hermione looked between him, Sarah Potter, and Minivra McGonagall. “I should say goodbye, to Harry and his parents, apologise – this is all my fault.”

   “We can tell them,” said Sarah, nodding.

   “It might be some time before they are able to come to us,” said McGonagall sensibly. “And I fear you don’t have much longer before you lose your fight with consciousness.” She managed a tight smile. “My dear,” she said with genuine affection. “I wish I could talk with you further, this is such a enthralling experience for us all. But Sarah and Terry will be able to do the job for you I have no doubt, and admirably. You have done enough for this realty. It is now time you look after yourself.”

   Hermione felt bewildered, this had all happened so fast. But the more she thought about it, and with McGonagall’s assertions, she was becoming more certain that being in the wrong reality was killing her.

   She sighed. “Okay,” she said, defeated. She really did want to go home, she was desperate to find out what had happened to Harry and Ron – had they succeeded? She was guessing from the fact they still existed that Voldemort hadn’t unravelled Limbo just yet, so there was still hope.

   There was always hope.

   “Okay,” said again, resign. “I’ll go home.”

   Sarah’s face crumpled and she threw her arms around Hermione’s waist. “Bye,” she said between soft little sobs. “It was really nice to meet you.”

   “And you,” said Hermione, stroking her dripping hair. “You look after Draco for me yeah?”

   “I promise,” Sarah said earnestly.

   “And the other Hermione,” she added with a smile. “She’ll be back when I leave.”

   Sarah nodded. “She’s not that different to you really.”

   “Oh come on,” said Terry cockily. “This one is _way_ more bossy.”

   McGonagall cleared her throat. “If you are ready, Miss Granger?”

   Hermione looked around at the playground where they had defeated Crouch and the Horcrux, watching as Quirrell was interrogated by an Aurora with a monocle and pipe who had neglected to put an umbrella over the Death Eater’s head. The Muggles were thinning now as they were questioned and Obliterated. She just wanted to wait for the Potters to come back; not to say goodbye seemed disloyal to her Harry. But maybe it was best to just leave it all behind, why make it harder than it had to be? She was never going to see these people again.

   Unless someone else fell through a Hotspot.

   She smiled tiredly and hoped not, it was just too much trouble. “Yes Professor,” she said. “I’m ready.”

   “You know the spell?” asked McGonagall, and Hermione nodded again. “Very well. In that case, I wish you all the best. Let us move back to give you some room,” she said to Sarah and Terry as she stepped away, taking her umbrella with her. Sarah gave a shuddery sigh and released Hermione’s waist to follow, and Terry turned away too, leaving Hermione to stand in the rain.

   She watched them move ten or so feet away, and she couldn’t help feel a little miffed that Terry hadn’t said anything. She opened her mouth to protest that after everything they’d been through she felt she at least deserved a goodbye, when he spun on his heels, strode purposefully towards her, slipped his hands around her neck and kissed her passionately on the lips.

   A squeak resonated somewhere at the back of her throat, and she thought maybe she heard Sarah shouting out, but mostly she just found herself letting go and leaning into his embrace, despite her terrible fever. The moment stretched out, but all too soon they pulled apart, and he rested his forehead on hers. “Look me up,” he said a little breathlessly. “When you get home. Okay?”

   “Okay,” she said.

   And with that, he placed a soft kiss on top of her head, gave her hands a squeeze, then walked back over to McGonagall’s umbrella.

   The Transfiguration teacher did nothing but raise an eyebrow, her gaze fixed forward as he dashed back under, and Sarah gaped at him with an open mouth. But he ignored them both. “Go on then,” he cat-called. “Get on with it, stop making such a fuss!”

   Hermione laughed and he winked. She wasn’t sure how she really felt about being kissed by the second boy from another universe in less than a day, but she was smiling as she held the letter out and pointed her wand at it. “Here goes nothing,” she said, took a deep breath, and fired. _“Activertum!”_

   Blinding light erupted from the letter, making the Aurors still standing in the rain shout in surprise just as loud as the terrified Muggles. The ground shook and the rain and wind lashed and howled, whipping into a mini hurricane around her. She could feel her whole body vibrating, an involuntary cry breaking from her lungs. The swings whipped back and forth, the merry-go-round span, and Hermione’s knees finally gave way as she plunged to the floor, falling right through it into nothingness as the darkness rushed up to claim her, taking her away from the world completely.  

 

***

 

   Ron was dreaming. He was dreaming that he’d been in an alternate reality, in America, with a cheerleader and a Muggle. They’d found the Philosopher’s Stone, killed Bellatrix Lestrange, and he’d used a flaming sword to kill a bit of You-Know-Who’s soul that had got trapped in a hat.

   As he stirred and stretched his legs, Ron decided that was a pretty awful dream.

   “Have y’all lost your gosh darn minds!” a voice screeched, and Ron winced. His head was pounding and there was a bad taste in his mouth. He stretched his legs again, then suddenly gasped as cramp lit up his left calf like a Crucio Curse.

   “OW!” he cried, sitting bolt upright and grabbing his leg. He blinked his eyes and wiggled his foot, rubbing his calf furiously. It took a minute for the pain to subside, but by that time he was fully awake, and finally able to take a look around at his surroundings.

   The first thing he noticed was that he was sat on a camp bed, in a big tent with several other camp beds set up around him. The second thing, was that everyone else in the room was staring at him.

   “RON!” bellowed Abigail Preston, launching herself across the room and throwing her arms around him. “Aw Hell, we thought you were a goner, you killed that thing, and you passed out, and then all the Aurors came-”

   Ron groaned and she let him go and sat back, making the bed shift disconcertingly. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?” he asked, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.

   “What?” demanded Abbey. Ron opened his eyes and gestured around the tent.

   “How are you feeling?” a medi-witch with black skin and very short, white, curly hair asked, as she hurried over to them and raised her wand. “You’ve been through quite a lot.”

   Ron considered. “Feel a bit better,” he admitted. “After a sleep.”

   “You weren’t sleeping,” said a voice from another bed. “You were unconscious.”

   “A.J.!” Ron cried happily, moving around so he could see his new friend propped up in the bed to his right. The Muggle boy looked tired, but the colour had returned with gusto to his skin, and it seemed like all his injuries from Bellatrix had been tended to. “You alright?”

   A.J. managed a weak smile. “Yeah,” he said as the medi-witch ran her wand over Ron, apparently taking some readings. “I’m okay.” His voice was heavy and Ron found himself deflating where he sat.

   Yes, he had destroyed the soul that Harry needed to stop You-Know-Who, and hopefully the Aurors had caught Crabapple and the other Death Eaters. But it had come at a price.

   “What’s happened?” Ron asked. None of the other beds were occupied, but there were several people who looked like they were from the American Ministry, as well as a few of Salem’s teachers, including the no longer cursed Professor Rodriguez. “Where are we, what happened to the school and the Death Eaters?”

   Rodriguez stepped forward solemnly, his hands clasped in front of his thighs. “The fight is over,” he said in his thick Hispanic accent. “But there were heavy casualties. I fear many students lost their lives in defence of their friends and their home.”

   Ron felt his throat clench and saw Abbey bow her head, tears welling in her eyes. “We still don’t know how many, or who,” she whispered. Ron thought of Bobby Drake, running towards the burning tower, and felt his own eyes blurring.

   “What about-?” he tried to say, but the words got caught in his mouth. “Has anyone,” he said instead. “Gone down into the secret passageway, did they find…”

   He couldn’t bring himself to say Chris’ name. He couldn’t even look at A.J., but it was him who spoke.

   “They brought him up a little while ago,” he said, his voice tight. “They’re going to say it was a car crash, seeing as his car has already been wrecked.” Ron felt another pang of guilt, but he forced himself to look up and saw that A.J. wasn’t angry or accusing, just deeply sad.

   “We can work with the Muggle police,” said one of the Aurors, a wiry man with light eyes and a goatee beard. “That way they’ll have a plausible story to bring back to his family.”

   “Which is why,” said another witch sternly. “We need to debrief this young man so we can modify his memory so his story will match!” She was a dumpy woman with a lavender perm and horn-rimmed glasses like Percy liked to wear. She was a great deal bigger than Abbey, but when the cheerleader jumped to her feet you would have been forgiven for thinking otherwise.  

   “And _ah’m_ tellin’ y’all, you are _not_ wiping his memory! Period!”

   Ron looked at A.J., who was watching with wide eyes, to all the adults in the room looking at Abbey, now standing in front of A.J. protectively.

   “It’s just protocol,” said the goatee man apologetically. “He’s a Muggle, he should never have even been here in the first place.”

   “Hang on,” said Ron, waving the hand that wasn’t propping him up on the bed. “What are you talking about?”

   Abbey thrust a finger at A.J.’s face, and he winced ever so slightly. “They wanna erase his memory! They wanna take _everything_ that happened away from him!”

   Ron blinked. “Why?” he said, looking back at the Aurors. The white haired medi-witch had made herself busy measuring out toadstools and stirring a potion she had going in a cauldron, but the rest of the adults were looked between the teenagers awkwardly.

   “Because he’s a _Muggle,”_ huffed lavender perm. “We cannot have him knowing about the school, or anything about magic! It’s just not done!”

   Ron felt like his brain was working very slowly as he looked at A.J. again, who was keeping quiet. “But, he helped us,” he said. “He helped us get through all the obstacles, he stood up to Bellatrix, you can’t – that’s not fair!” He felt the blood pumping back through his tired limbs again, and, very shakily, he managed to stand up too.

   “Who knows who he might tell?” argued the lavender witch. “Sentimentality is no excuse-”

   _“Sentimentality!”_ cried Abbey, outraged. “Him and his friend helped us save the universe and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Chris _died_ for this, and you want to take that away from him? To make up some weak-ass excuse about a car crash?”

   Rodriguez shared a look with the goateed Auror. “Abigail,” said the Professor. “I agree, but Candeece here is adamant-”

   “But,” said Ron as Candeece, the lavender haired witch, scowled. “When we marry Muggles we’re allowed to tell them, and in other special circumstances. I think this would count as a special circumstance, wouldn’t it?”

   The wizard with the goatee raised an eyebrow. “He has a point,” he said to his colleague.

   “A.J.,” snapped Abbey, spinning around to face him. “Do you want them to mess around with your memory so you don’t know what really happened, or are you okay thinking that Chris died in some stupid car crash rather than saving the world?”

   “Er,” said A.J., looking between her and Ron. “No thanks. I’d rather you didn’t mess with my brain. That’s a step too far.”

   Abbey gave Candeece a smug look and jammed her hands onto her hips. “He don’t want a lobotomy, and if you feel like trying, you gotta go through me first.”

   “And me,” said Ron, hoping he sounded steadier than he felt. He wasn’t sure he could stand up to a chocolate frog right about now.

   “I feel I have to stand by the children,” said Rodriguez, moving to literally stand on Abbey’s other side. “Unless you want to commission a full review, I feel it best we just leave the boy’s memory alone. I doubt he will be telling anyone once we make the need for secrecy clear.”

   Candeece scoffed loudly and high-pitched. “Fine,” she said shrilly. “I was only doing my job, on your head be it.” She spun on her heels, nose in the air. “There is plenty for us to be getting on with,” she snipped at the other Aurors in the tent, and with that she stormed back out into the pouring rain.

   The agents didn’t look all that impressed, but they followed her out anyway. The other teachers nodded and looked to Rodriguez, who gave them a single nod of approval. They filed out the tent, obviously eager to help in the recovery operation.

   The Bureau agent with the goatee hesitated a moment as he followed the other adults. “Heraldo,” he said, turning round just as he crossed the threshold. “You’ve still got that item we retrieved?”

   Rodriguez patted his chest and harrumphed. “No,” he said. “I lost my senses again and handed it over to the nearest Death Eater.”

   The agent looked amused, and stepped out into the rainy night.

   “Thank you,” said A.J. to the three of them. “I really didn’t want them messing with my memories, that would have been...very wrong.”

   “Chris deserves better than that,” said Ron earnestly.

   “Hell yeah,” agreed Abbey, throwing herself onto the end of A.J.’s bed, apparently not noticing his ill-hidden wince.

   “I know they are only trying to do their jobs,” said Rodriguez shaking his head. “But I feel after all you have done for our people A.J., you can be trusted to keep our secrets.”

   A.J. nodded, and Rodriguez took Abbey’s lead and sat on the end of Ron’s bed. “As Madam Crabapple has been taken into custody,” he said kindly to Ron. “I have been appointed acting Headmaster in her absence. I think there are a few things we need to discuss, if you wouldn’t mind?”

   Ron looked at him, the prospect of all the things they could possibly have to talk about daunting him immeasurably. “Err, sure,” he said.

   “First,” said Rodriguez. “I feel I have to apologise profusely for my actions whilst under the Imperius Curse. I was not myself and was helpless to prevent the attack on you and your friends.” He turned and nodded at A.J. and Abbey, who nodded back.

   Ron felt a bit awkward. “S’fine,” he said, wishing he could lean back against the pillows like A.J. was, but the professor was in the way of where his legs would go, so he stayed perched.

   “The Lestrange woman was very wicked, but Abigail explained to us what happened with the mirror.”

   “I didn’t mean to,” cried Ron, guilt welling up in him again. “She was going to kill A.J. and I knew she wanted the Stone, I just thought it would distract her, you might be able to get her out if you tried?”

   But Rodriguez was holding up his hands. “No, no,” he said softly. “That is not what I meant at all. I can appreciate it must have been very difficult for you to let the mirror take her, but by doing so you saved yourselves as well as many others I suspect. But also, you freed me from many weeks of torment. What I meant was-” he held out his hand for Ron to shake. “Thank you.”

   Now Ron was even more uncomfortable and confused. “Oh,” he said, looking at his tanned, course hand, before offering his own for a hard grip and shake. “Um, you’re welcome. But the others helped you know, anyone would have done the same.”

   Rodriguez’s dark eyes sparkled. “I am not certain that they would have, Ronald.”

   Ron didn’t know what to say to that, so he just waited.

   “Your friends explained,” said Rodriguez after a moment. “Everything as best as they could, and it is quite an incredible tale. How you arrived at the school, the prophecies, the trials.”

   Ron glanced at A.J., who raised an eyebrow and nodded to show his agreement.

   Rodriguez saw the exchange. “Ah, and of course your Muggle friend Alexander too, he told of how you woke up in this body. Can it really be you are from an alternate reality?”

   Ron rubbed the back of his stiff neck. After all the running and falling and hitting and hiding, there was hardly a part of his body that didn’t ache. He apologised mentally to the other Ron for taking such bad care of it. “Um, yeah,” he said, shrugging. “I was trying to send someone else back to their reality, but something went wrong and I ended up here.”

   “Who,” said Rodriguez, frowning. “What do you mean? Who were you trying to send back, where?”

   Ron rubbed his eyes and blew out a breath. “Okay,” he said, and, starting from last November and Harry’s disappearance, tried his best to explain what had been going on in the saga of dimension swapping. There was still a lot he didn’t understand himself, but he hoped he was able to tell them enough so they got most of it. “No one meant to cross over,” he said after a lot of talking. “It was always just an accident. But I still ended up here,” he paused, swallowing. “I still ruined everything.”

   Rodriguez opened his mouth. “No,” he started to say, but Ron was just too tired.

   “Yes,” he said. “I did. If I hadn’t been so weak, I could have figured it out myself, instead of dragging Chris and A.J. and the whole bloody school into it. How many people have died because I was too scared to try and think how to get back home myself!”

   “What else would you have done?” asked A.J., his own voice hardening. “Wandered around the world until you stumbled upon another Hotspot for you to throw magic at?” He pushed himself up in bed. “Pretended to be our Ron for the rest of your life? No, you did the most sensible thing by coming here, and Chris insisted we take you.” Unbelievably, he managed a rueful smile. “And there is no talking that boy out of a scheme once he’s got it in his brain, wild horses couldn’t have kept him away.”

   Rodriguez nodded and clenched his fist. “You did not murder these people Ronald,” he insisted. “It was the people of The Dark Lord – Lestrange, Crabapple – traitors all that will pay for their terrible crimes. These are the people that attacked innocent children. It was _you_ who were willing to give your life to protect them.”

   “An’ ah saw what you did, with that thing that came outta the hat,” said Abbey solemnly. “You were somin’ fierce.”

   Ron could feel his mouth was slightly open, so he shut it with a little click. “But,” he tried weakly.

   “No buts,” said the professor, standing. “I will not hear one more word. You have done your best in a frightening and, dare I say, wholly unique situation. The least we can do for you now is help you find your way home. Once the school is back on its feet again it will be my top priority.”

   “But how?” said Ron. “I have no idea how to get myself home.”

   “I believe,” said Rodriguez. “My friend Agent Lee has given me something that might help with this.” He fished into his robes and brought out something from his inner breast pocket, an envelope. “This is addressed to you, amongst others.”

   Abbey and A.J. craned their necks as the teacher handed over the letter and watched eagerly as Ron flipped it over to see the recipients. He couldn’t help but choke out a cough.

   “What is it?” asked Abbey. “Who else is it for?”

   “My friends,” said Ron disbelievingly. “From home, from my world.” He held it up so the others could see. “Harry and Hermione.”

   “Both British,” said Rodriguez. “One deceased, one a Muggle born with no idea she is a witch.”

   Ron flicked an eyebrow as he jammed his finger under the seal. “Not where I’m from,” he said, yanking the parchment out and reading the words hungrily. “It’s from my professor,” he said, trying to ignore it was his all-time-least-favourite professor and focus on the positives. “This is just like what we did last time. I just have to activate this letter, then I can go home!”

   He looked up excitedly, but was met with two sad faces and one sceptical one. “This letter can do that?” asked Rodriguez.

   “You wanna go home now?” said Abbey, her eyes wide.

   Ron looked between them. “Where did you find this?” Ron said to Rodriguez instead, avoiding their own questions.

   The professor smoothed his robes and glanced out into the wet night. Ron had completely lost track of what the time might be, it could be almost morning for all he knew. “The Bureau detected a magical anomaly, when they were in Cleveland debriefing the rest of your family.”

This surprised Ron. “Are they okay?” he asked, forgetting everything else momentarily.

   Rodriguez nodded. “Lee informed me they are shocked but otherwise fine, and looking forward to their son’s return amongst other things.”

   Ron looked down at the letter. They must be so confused, all his brothers and Ginny; did they know by now they were magical?

   “What kind of anomaly?”

   Rodriguez waved his fingers at the letter. “In a basketball court near your home, a flurry of activity and strange weather. When they went to investigate this was pinned under a trash can. We are lucky it not blow away all together.”

   Obviously becoming impatient, Abbey reached out and snatched the letter from Ron’s hand, and held it up for her and A.J. to read. “I don’t get it,” she said.

   “It’s what we did when Harry got stuck in the first alternate reality,” said Ron. “Me and Hermione...well, mostly Hermione and our headmaster,” he admitted with a shrug. “They made a potion and enchanted a letter to follow in Harry’s wake. It could have been any object, but a letter meant we could explain things.”

   “So,” said Rodriguez, taking the letter himself to inspect. “It is now a sort of Portkey?”

   Ron nodded. “Yeah,” he said, pleased they were getting it. “It means...”   He sat back, letting it really sink in. “It means it’s over, I can go home.” He couldn’t believe, after everything, it was that easy.

   “You’re leaving so soon?” said Abbey. He couldn’t help but note the hurt in her voice.

   He glanced up at Rodriguez, who handed the letter back with the smallest of nods. “I don’t belong here,” said Ron, sighing as he looked at her and A.J. “I need to get back to my own world, find Harry and Hermione, make sure they’re okay. Hell,” he waved the letter with a laugh. “I even want to see what happened to Draco, who thought that would even happen?”

   Of course none of them had the slightest idea who Draco Malfoy was, so couldn’t appreciate the bizarreness of that wish. Instead Abbey leant forward and took his free hand. “But, it’s just so sudden?”

   Ron squeezed her hand, and looked over surprised as his other one was taken too. A.J. had sat up in bed, and reached over for Abbey’s hand as well. “I know it’s not exactly been fun,” said Ron as the three of them linked hands. “In fact, a lot of it’s been downright terrifying. But I can’t say I’m sorry I met you.”

   “Me too,” said A.J.

   “Me three,” said Abbey, laughing as a tear escaped her eye, and she wiped it away with her elbow.

   “The other me,” said Ron. “He’ll wake up when I go, he won’t remember any of this. Will you look after him?”

   Abbey made a scornful noise. “Duh,” she said. “Someone’s gotta watch his back in this place, this school is crazy don’t you know?”

   “And strange things happen in our neighbourhood,” said A.J. with a touch of a grin. He and Abbey exchanged a look, and in that moment, Ron knew he and his family would be in good hands, wherever their new lives took them.

   He turned to find Rodriguez was still standing near them, watching on silently with a proud expression on his face. “I think I’m ready,” Ron told him, his throat clamping only slightly.

   Rodriguez sighed and clapped Ron’s shoulder. “As already promised,” he said. “We will take the very best care of you and your kin. Thank you for everything you have done for us.”

   With one final squeeze, Ron let Abbey and A.J. go, and taking a deep breath, stood once more to his feet. The room swam only a little before him before he managed to steady himself. “I think I better go outside,” he said. “I think this’ll make a bit of a mess.”

   “I will warn the Bureau,” said Rodriguez, and preceded him out of the tent.

   “Good luck man,” said A.J. with a salute. Abbey threw her arms around him.

   “Crazy dumb ass,” she said with affection, one last time.

   Ron swallowed the lump in his throat and walked away from them, back out into the dark and the rain.

   He could just make out Professor Rodriguez and the man with the goatee, presumably Agent Lee, ushering people back in the torch light and giving him a twenty foot radius of space. The school complex lay in the distance, maybe a hundred feet away. Several dozen tents like the one he’d been in were pitched in every direction, and people were hurrying between them all. The fires seemed to have been extinguished from the battle, but there was still a grim air about the place. Ron gasped as the rain plastered his hair to his forehead as he moved further into the night. It was cold, but that soothed his fever if anything.

   “Okay,” he said to himself. “Alright, you can do this.” He held the letter up, the ink running in the rain. He panicked and wondered if that would affect the spell, then decided to just do it anyway before the rain disintegrated the parchment all together. “I can do this,” he whispered. “I can do this, I can do this – _Activertum!”_

   A whirlwind exploded into life around him, making people scream and run even further away. Thunder boomed and lightning pierced the sky as the wind roared making it almost impossible to hear his own voice as he cried out. He fell to his knees, all his energy going into holding onto the letter, and the ground shook. Just as he began to fear it wasn’t working, that he’d failed, he felt his eyes roll into the back of his head, darkness rushing up to great him.

   To take him away from this world.

 

***

 

   Harry could feel the snow and the mud seeping through his jeans as he sat staring, unseeing, over the graveyard beside Malfoy Manor.

   “No,” said Hermione, uncertainly, from above his head. “No, surely, that can’t be right? There must be something we can do?”

   Harry felt the paper airplane that had held the message sealing his fate flit from his fingers, catching in the breeze and tumbling away through the headstones. He let it go, it had done its job.

   Alex was still cradling the white puppy who was staring at them all with his sad hazel eyes. “Harry no longer has a body,” said the Watcher. “His heart stopped beating the moment Voldemort was ripped from inside him, and his lungs stopped breathing.”

   “But,” protested Hermione, her voice quavering. “There must be a spell, some magic that can be done?”

   “The only magic,” said Merlin, announcing his arrival and drawing Harry’s head up. “That can thwart death, is the creation of a Horcrux before one’s demise. An evil process, that thankfully our young Mr Potter here did not partake in.”

   He looked down at Harry with warmth, but Harry didn’t know how to respond. His thoughts were flat lining, he couldn’t formulate a single one. Was this grief? Could you grieve yourself?

   “It’s not fair,” said Draco, his voice cracking. “It’s not, it should have been me.”

   “It shouldn’t have been anyone,” snapped Alex, dislodging Sir Woofsalot by getting to his feet and stomping around, his hands gripping his highlighted hair and pulling it at odd angles. “Why didn’t we get to you quicker, why did we leave you alone, why-” he snarled pulling his hands out and balling them into fists. “Why didn’t I predict how the amulet would react to the Horcruxes when you attempted the leap!” He looked down at Seamus for just a second before spinning so his back was to them. “It’s all my fault.”

   “It’s not,” insisted Hermione. “Stop saying that, you’re not to blame. We need to be focusing on the problem at hand and get Harry’s body back, I refuse to believe-”

“There’s nothing we can do!” cried Draco, and Harry heard him moving away. He hadn’t yet brought himself to look around at them. “What we should have done was stop Bellatrix finishing the spell, but we didn’t.”

   “But if we don’t even try!” Hermione retorted, and Harry could hear the tears in her voice.

   “Enough,” he said.

   “Hermione, there’s no magic in the universe that can bring his body back to life,” Draco shouted. They were attracting curious glances from the Romans and Vikings, but no one was coming near them. “Not unless you want to make him some sort of Inferi!”

   “But he’s right there!” argued Hermione. “He’s not dead, _I’m looking at him!”_

   “Enough!” said Harry loudly, getting to his feet, and with a deep breath, turned to look at his friends. “Enough.”

   Hermione’s face dissolved and she took the few steps over to him, encircling him with her arms. “No,” she pleaded pitifully. “No it can’t…you can’t…”

   Harry hugged her as she cried, and found they were soon being embraced by the taller form of Draco as well. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

   Harry clung to them, his thoughts finally starting to find purchase. How could this be the end? After everything they’d been through, how could it just end accidently, through mere chance and happenstance?

   But maybe it was chance and happenstance that had meant he’d survived this far in the first place? Had his luck just run out? Or was there a way to fight back, take control, like he had when he’d found the dimensional portal in the first place? He’d felt so powerless in the face of Sirius’ recapturing, but he’d found a way, an impossible way, to fix it, to save him.

   They were in an impossible place, why couldn’t he find another impossible solution?

   He pulled away from Draco and Hermione, and they watched him as he stepped back, frowning. “Hermione’s right,” he said, thinking the words through before he spoke them.

   He saw Draco look at Hermione, who’s expression had become nervous. “I am?” she said.

   “I want my body back,” said Harry, his thoughts becoming clearer every second.

   “Harry,” said Alex, shaking his head and taking a step closer towards them and where Seamus’ body lay, collecting snow. “There’s no way-”

   But Harry was already shaking his head. “I don’t want to die in some field, in some universe where I was never born.” His nails were digging into his palms. “I want Sirius to know I’m gone, to have a funeral, to be laid to rest!”

   “We don’t have that sort of power,” said Alex, looking to Merlin for support, but Merlin was just looking at Harry. “We aren’t physical beings, we can’t take a physical thing from one reality and put it another.”

   “But you gave me that amulet?” Harry countered.

   “That was from here, a spectrum of Limbo,” said Alex, moving closer again. “Look, I’m sorry but you can’t get to the reality, there’s no way-”

   “But Draco can,” said Harry. Alex opened his mouth, and shut it again.

   “Yeah,” said Draco carefully, and Harry turned to look at him. “But then I’d be stuck in that reality, I wouldn’t be able to come back.”

   “You would if I was inside you.”

   Draco held Harry’s gaze, his jaw slowly setting. Hermione looked back and forth between the two, eyes wide. “Oh no,” said Alex, stepping around Seamus’ body to stand between the two boys. “I know you’ve had a hard day’s dying but let’s not succumb to any post-mortem craziness.”

   “Why is it crazy?” asked Harry. “We could do the same spell as Voldemort. The Bellatrixs’ ingredients are probably still set up to a certain degree, I’m sure Merlin could do the incantation if she could, and open the portal to the same universe again.”

   “Harry,” said Draco, confusion lining his face. “You want to take me out of my body?”

   “Only for a little while,” assured Harry with the upmost sincerity. “And unlike Voldemort I’d be willing to give it back, straight away! But Hermione’s right, I can’t just give up without trying, I have to get my own body back and at least see if I can re-enter it.”

   “And when you can’t?” Merlin asked. “When you accept that your body is lost to you, will you really be willing to give Draco his back?”

   “I wouldn’t kill Draco,” said Harry, his tone darkening. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

   Merlin gave him a rueful smile. “I have been in this plane for a millennia,” he said. “And I have seen many strange reactions of the newly dead. But there was hardly a one of them, that wouldn’t have snatched life back if they could have.”

   Harry could feel himself getting angry. “I wouldn’t hurt Draco, I wouldn’t. I just want to get my body back, to be buried by my parents.”

   “That,” said Hermione tentatively. “Doesn’t seem so bad?”

   Alex was looking increasingly distressed. “It’s never been done,” he said. “In the history of the _cosmos._ There’s a reason for that and it’s because no good can come of it! Dimension swapping unsettles the balance, it has a way of coming back and fixing itself, and not always in a good way! Look at Seamus, look at you, the other Harry, and all the stuff that’s happened with my Ron and Hermione-”

   “What?” snapped Harry. “What’s happened to them?”

   Alex waved his hands. “They’re fine I guess, but what they’ve been through in their alternate realities, it’s unbelievable! It should never have escalated that way, the carnage –people have died because the universe will _always_ rebalance itself. The other Harry tried to mess with it, to unravel his fate, but it just won’t work.”

   “That Harry from the library?” asked Hermione in a small voice. “What happened-”

   But Harry’s brain had shifted gears again. “Wait stop – Ron, Hermione – I can’t just leave them, I have to help them get home. I have to…” He looked round at Draco imploringly. “If we went to them, they could get home at least. What kind of trouble are they in, is it bad?”

   Alex gave him a rabbit-in-headlights stare. “Uh,” he said as Sir Woofsalot peered around his jeans. “I, well I haven’t had an update in a while, but there were zombies…sort of, and Death Eaters and the Philosopher’s Stone-”

   Harry felt himself reeling slightly. _“Zombies?”_ he repeated. “One of them is dealing with _zombies?”_

   “Well, technically,” Alex began, but Harry turned back to Draco.

   “We can’t leave them, we can’t. This is our fault, all this, if we’d just stayed in our own universes and minded our own business, they wouldn’t be in this danger!”

   Draco licked his lips, his eyes moving between Harry and Alex. “I suppose,” he said.

   “Just think,” said Harry, stepping closer and talking quieter. “Of all the good we could do together. Just because no one’s ever done it before doesn’t mean it has to be a bad thing. The Voldemorts wanted to rule the Multiverse, but we could help Ron and Hermione, maybe other people too.”

   “Harry,” said Draco carefully. “It wouldn’t be ‘we’, it’d be you, in my body. I’d be stranded here.”

   “But not permanently,” said Harry, shaking his head. “Once I’d helped them, set things straight, got my body back, we could ask the Watchers, see what else we could do.” He grabbed Draco’s shoulders. “Who knows,” he cried, blood flowing hot in his veins despite the snow. “We could find and destroy more Voldemorts, save more universes and more lives!”

   He felt consumed by the idea. His death didn’t have to be in vein, it could serve a purpose, a higher purpose. He and Draco could Watch over the Multiverse in ways the regular Watchers couldn’t imagine.

   “You want to go into other universes,” said Alex. His tone was hollow, making Harry turn around to face him. “Change things?”

   “Don’t you see?” he asked. “You’ve never had an opportunity like this before. You wouldn’t just have to watch your worlds, you could really help them!”

   “Harry,” said Draco, taking a deep breath. “I can see what you’re saying-”

   “What if,” Harry interrupted, pointing a finger at him. “There was a universe where your mum was being held so Voldemort could blackmail you, just like what happened before. But _we_ could step in and save her! We could change some other Draco’s life entirely.”

   Draco looked stunned. His eyes drifted from Harry, to the people around him.

   Merlin was very quiet, his gaze focused on Harry still. “You could do it,” Harry said to him. “If Bellatrix could, then the spell should be easy for you.”

   “Harry,” said Draco.

   “Draco,” said Harry back. “My best friends are fighting zombies or whatever because of me, it’s my fault, but we could rescue them, get them home. Don’t you want to help me?”

   He let the question hang, trying to read Draco’s expression. He looked pained, and Harry’s insides twisted.

   “Please,” he said, stepping back towards him. “Please, I don’t want there to be any more needless death today. If you’re worried I wouldn’t give your body back your wrong, you’re so wrong. This doesn’t have to be the end, we have the power to move between universes, to come back to Limbo. No one’s _ever_ been ableto do that before!”

   Draco swallowed and blinked his eyes rapidly. “Harry,” he said, quieter this time. “You’re not a god.”

   Harry frowned, taken aback. “I know that,” he said, but Draco was already shaking his head.

   “But you’re talking about taking charge of people’s destinies, whole worlds where you get to decide what’s right and what’s wrong, who lives and who dies.”

   “For the greater good,” Harry argued.

   “But who are _you_ to decide that?” Draco demanded. His voice wasn’t exactly hostile but his tone was hard. “To fix all the ‘what ifs’ in our lives, that’s not right. Alex said, the universe balances itself out, if it needed some higher being to do it for it, there would already be one!”

   Harry could feel the icy tendrils of betrayal creeping through his guts. “So you won’t help me help the other Hermione,” he said, looking at the one standing next to them. “My Hermione?”

   “I don’t think that’s going to be an issue,” said Merlin, looking at the pale and worried Hermione wringing her hands by Draco’s side.

   “What do you mean?” Harry asked, thrown. “Has something happened to my Hermione?”

   “Oh,” said this Hermione, staggering a couple of steps and raising her hand to her head. Draco dashed to her side.

   “What?” he asked.

   Hermione blinked. “Dizzy,” she said, staggering again into Draco’s arms. “Oh.”

   Her knees gave way and the two of them dropped to the ground. “What’s happening to her?” cried Draco fearfully.

   “What have you done?” accused Harry, wheeling on Merlin.

   “I haven’t done anything,” replied Merlin, holding his hands up reassuringly. “She’s fine, it’s okay.”

   But as Harry turned back Hermione had started shaking, her eyes fluttering closed.

   “Hermione!” said Draco desperately, but as Harry darted over to them both, her eyes closed, she stopped shaking…

   And then she vanished into thin air.

 

***

 

   Sarah was still cold, but she couldn’t describe the sheer bliss of sitting outside by their make-shift campfire and not being pounded by the relentless, freezing rain. She sighed to herself, content.

   “Do you think she’s sleeping?” Terry asked by her side. McGonagall had left them after Hermione had performed her activation spell, but before she had, she had conjured a mattress for Hermione lie on, camp chairs and mugs of hot chocolate for Sarah and Terry, and blankets for all three of them. She had even siphoned off the rainwater, leaving them dry for the first time in hours.

   Terry hadn’t taken his eyes off of Hermione since they had laid her down, despite the arrival of Kingsley Shacklebolt and his many, many questions.

   “I guess so,” said Sarah, considering her. “She’s breathing. Maybe she’s dreaming?”

   “No nightmares I hope,” said Terry, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the playground. Most of the Muggles were still being processed by the Ministry, interviewed and given medical attention before having their memories modified.

   “So,” said Kinsley slowly from his own camp chair, looking over his notes. “Explain to me again how you got to an…alternate universe Miss Potter?” He sounded very dubious, but when McGonagall had said she was going to send him to them, she’d assured them that he had been briefed as fully as she had. The Auror was obviously just having a little trouble coming to terms with it.

   “It was an accident,” said Sarah tiredly. Now she was warm and comfy all she wanted to do was sleep, but knowing that her parents were potentially on their way was keeping her conscious for the moment. “There’s a Dimensional Hotspot by the school-”

   “Yes, Minerva mentioned that,” said Kingsley, flicking back a few pages in his notebook. “And you said your brother activated it with his anger.”

   “He was shouting at Hermione,” said Terry, indicating the sleeping girl with his chin, his hands still wrapped around the warm mug of chocolate. “About his body swap, he’s been so mad at her and Malfoy for Seamus’ death for so long, I think he just snapped.”

   “And that’s Draco Malfoy you’re referring too?” asked Kingsley, shifting in his camp chair. Sarah had a feeling he’d been asleep before he’d been called to Godric’s Hollow, judging from the fact he was still wearing slippers.

   Terry nodded in response to his question.

   “And he’s still missing?”

   Sarah blew on her hot chocolate as her insides flipped. “I think so,” she said, eyes on her drink. “I last saw him in Limbo, the place in between realities.” She lowered her mug to her lap. “I left him there.”

   Terry rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sure he’s fine,” he said confidently. “He might already be back and we just don’t know it.”

   Kingsley flipped around a few pages. “We can come back to the Limbo thing later,” he said, shaking his pen to try and get it to work. The order had been to minimise magic use in front of the Muggles, and Sarah guessed he wasn’t used to actually having to write with his hand. “I want to focus more on what happened here in the town first, then we can cover this…” he waved his hand about. “Inter-dimensional business.”

   “Sarah?”

   Her head spun around so fast she thought it might rotate entirely off her shoulders. “Mum?” she cried, looking through the crowd for the familiar flash of red hair. It didn’t take her long to find it. _“Mummy!”_ she shrieked, flinging her mug and blanket to the ground and leaping to her feet.

   Lily Potter was sprinting towards where they were sat near the tree line, and Sarah wasted no time in doing the same, crashing into her mother half way in between, causing the two of them to fall to the floor. “Oh my baby,” Lily was sobbing, clinging onto Sarah and kissing her hair over and over. “Oh my precious baby girl!”

   Sarah was laughing as tears leaked from her eyes. “I thought I’d never see you again!” she gasped.

   Her mum loosened her iron like grip so she could hold her at arm’s length and look her over. “Are you okay?” she said steadily as she regained her composure.

   Sarah nodded, but her attention was caught by more people running towards them. “Dad!” she cried, a grin splitting her face almost in two. “Sirius, Harry!” And that wasn’t all, Remus Lupin and Parvati Patil weren’t far behind, and they were all charging up the playground to meet them.

   Her dad got there first, not pausing as he scooped Sarah off the ground and threw her into a bear hug, her legs wrapped around his waist. “You’re alive,” he said, breathing heavily. “Oh thank Merlin you’re alive.”

   “And you’re not a zombie anymore!” said Sarah happily.

   James palled back and looked at her in confusion. “Zombie?” he said.

   Sarah laughed and shrugged. “Well, almost a zombie I guess.”

   “Sarah?”

   She moved and looked around her dad. Harry, her Harry, the brother that had pulled her hair and shared his jelly beans with her her whole life, was standing stock still, hands curled in tension by his side. “Hey Harry,” she said shyly. “Glad you’re de-zombified too.”

   Parvati was just about to put her hand on his shoulder, when he bolted, launching at Sarah and their dad, practically wrenching her into his own arms.

   “I’m sorry,” he said. He was crying, actually crying. Sarah couldn’t believe it. “It was all my fault, Granger said, it was me, when I lost my temper-”

   “Harry, HARRY,” cried Sarah arching her back so she could pull away enough and look at him. “Harry it’s okay, I’m fine. I know what happened.”

   He let he go and took a step back, watching her like she might explode. “So you know it was me?”

   “What are you talking about?” said Lily, having got up from the ground. “What was your fault Harry?”

   “Nothing!” said Sarah sternly looking at her mother, then turning back to Harry with a scowl. “It was just an accident,” she told him firmly. “You didn’t do it on purpose. And I told you, I’m fine, I’m better than fine!” She wanted to add that she’d just helped save the Multiverse, or at least it seemed like she had, but it didn’t feel like the right moment.

   “Yeah,” said Terry, who had sauntered up with Kingsley Shacklebolt. “Look at her, she’s never been better.” Sarah gave him a punch on the arm and immediately tried to flatten her tangled hair.

   “Terry,” squeaked Parvati. “You’re okay!” she ran over to throw her arms around him, and with a roll of the eyes he eventually patted her on the back too.

   “I am so glad you are okay also,” said Kingsley to the adults. They nodded, and the group naturally clustered, people hugging one another around the rather large puddles sat on the playground glimmering in the moonlight.

   “Harry and Parvati explained as much as they could to us,” said Remus, shaking his head. “It’s remarkable.”

   “Though they were a bit confused how the kitchen of our house got exploded,” said her dad with a raised eyebrow, and Sarah coughed guiltily.

   “Did they mention there were zombies? Lots of zombies?”

   Her mum pulled her into a hug again. “I’m sure it can all be fixed,” she said good naturedly to her husband, who folded his arms and smiled back, placated. “I’m just glad you’re okay, all of you.”

   “Is Hermione injured?” asked Remus, looking over to where she lay in concern.

   Sarah and Terry shook their heads. “She’s fine,” said Sarah.

   “Better than fine,” assured Terry. “In fact she’s on her way home.”

   The others shared a beat on confusion between them, before Parvati exclaimed. “You mean she’s going back to her own reality?”

   “How?” asked Remus.

   “Wait,” said Kingsley, flicking through his notebook. “I think I have it here somewhere...”

   “Was it like last time?” asked Sirius, looking around the group, eventually settling on Sarah. “With Harry? Did she get a letter?”

   Sarah nodded. “From Professor Snape,” she said, glancing guiltily at her mum. She really, really hoped that letter he’d written to her had survived everything that had gone on at the house.

   “What did Snivellus have to do with it?” scoffed her dad, and Sarah felt a surprising surge of protection towards the man.

   “Everything,” she said sternly. “He wrote the letter, got Hermione home and hopefully Ron and Harry too, and he sent me back here as well. He was brilliant.”

   Sirius, Remus and especially her dad looked on her with no small amount of shock, but she was glad when her mum squeezed her shoulders and looked down at her, pleased.

   “I guess,” said Remus, raising his eyebrows. “We should be a little more courteous to our Severus after all.”

   Sirius made a scornful noise. “I wouldn’t go that far Moony,” he said. But Sarah shook her mum off and jammed her arms crossly on her hips.

   “I think that’s exactly what you should do,” she said, jutting her chin in the air. “There’s been far too much blaming people and pointing fingers this past year, and it’s got to stop.”

   “Before any more dimensional portals get opened by accident,” added Terry with a raised eyebrow. Sarah batted him, not wanting to upset Harry again, but she was surprised when her brother sighed.

   “You’re right,” he said, causing Parvati to throw him a dubious look. “I’ve been so angry with that other Harry, for everything that was taken out of my control, without really realising it was out of his control too.”

   “But Seamus-” spluttered Parvati.

   “Is fine,” interrupted Sarah, the happy memory coming back to her and causing her to smile.

   Parvati’s mouth thinned. “I’m sorry,” she said in clipped tones. “But no matter how much forgiving we do, Seamus is still dead.”

   “Seamus may be dead,” countered Sarah, her heart fluttering at what she was about to say. “But Hermione said he’s doing fine, so maybe you should start letting that go.”

   Harry and Parvati stared at her. “What?” said Harry.

   “Hermione said?” repeated Parvati. “The one from the other universe?”

   “Yeah,” said Terry nodding. “She had a chat with our Seamus when she was asleep. Apparently he could talk to her like that, and she said he’s in Limbo.”

   “And he’s a Watcher,” added Sarah excitedly, so happy to be able to relay what Hermione had told them. “That’s someone who looks after a universe, I met the one from the other reality and it seems like an exciting job!”

   Everyone was goggling at them. “You mean,” said Harry slowly. “She actually spoke to him?”

   “A couple of hours ago,” said Terry. “That’s how we knew about the Horcrux that we had to kill so the other Harry could defeat our You-Know-Who.”

   “What?” said Sirius, but Kingsley shushed him, his eyes not leaving his notepad as he scribbled some more.

   “Later,” he said.

   “Seamus is trapped in Limbo?” said Parvati.

   “No,” said Sarah, smiling. “Not trapped, he chose to stay there.”

   “And he’s okay?” Harry repeated, disbelief on his face. “Even though he’s…dead?”

   “Hermione said he was enjoying his new job,” Sarah assured him. “That he looked good.”

   Parvati’s face dissolved into tears, and she buried her head noisily into Harry’s shoulder. Harry was still staring though, his eyes travelling between everyone watching him, until they rested on Hermione still sleeping on the mattress.

   “Wow,” he said. “That’s...that’s great.”

   “So he’s watching over us?” asked Lily, her eyes glassy. “Like a guardian angel?” Sarah nodded, happy with the comparison.

   “This is a lot to take in,” said Remus, shaking his head.

   Sirius was looking thoughtful. “There’s one thing I’m still not sure on,” he said.

   “Just one?” said James but Sirius scowled at him.

   “Where’s Draco?”

   Sarah and Terry looked at each other, and Terry rubbed her back. “We’re not sure,” he said.

   “Seamus said he was in Limbo too,” said Sarah. “But since we destroyed the Horcrux that should mean he can come home now?” She glanced at Terry, who nodded reassuringly. The adults, Harry and Parvati however looked in bewilderment at Kingsley.

   “Let me guess,” said Sirius, seeing the look on his face. “Later?”

   Kingsley nodded.

   A gasping sound made them all spin round, and with a jolt, Sarah realised that Hermione was sitting upright on her mattress, clutching her chest and looking around wildly. “Draco!” she cried as if she’d been listening to them, confusion dawning on her face. “What’s going on, where am I?”

   Remus darted over to her with Kingsley. “Call McGonagall,” said Terry to Sarah’s parents, and her dad yanked his wand from his pocket. He conjured his familiar stag, and as Sarah rushed over to Hermione, she heard him giving it instructions to go find the acting Headmistress.

   “You’re alright,” said Remus, crouching down to inspect Hermione, who was looking at everyone, terrified.

   “What’s going on?” she said again, then she spotted Harry. “Where’s Draco?” she asked, her eyes blinking rapidly. “You were fighting…”

   “It’s okay,” said Terry soothingly, crouching opposite Lupin. “It’s okay, you’re home now.”

   Hermione took a deep breath, her eyes settling on Terry. “Uh,” she said. “I’m sorry, but who are you?” Her eyes glanced down. “And why aren’t you wearing any shoes?”

   Sarah thought she saw a flicker of disappointment on his face, but then the Ravenclaw regained his composure. “You’re wearing them,” he said, pointing to her feet. “Long story, but I think you’ve been away for a while, and now you’re back in the real world.”

   Hermione gaped at him a moment, before her eyes travelled around the rest of the group. “Sarah!” she cried as she realised who she was, and scrambled to give her a hug. Sarah had never been hugged so much in her whole life. “Draco said you fell through a door rescuing a puppy or something, he was so worried! Alex said you got back safe...so, does that mean I’m...”

“Home,” said Terry, nodding.

   Sarah grabbed her shoulders. “So you were with Draco? Our Draco?”

“In Limbo?” Harry clarified. Sarah was a little surprised at his civil tone, but he was looking at Hermione strangely.

She nodded. “We were by a version of his house, that’s what Limbo was like, a patchwork of different terrains and peoples’ houses, places they remembered from when they were alive.”

   “And you remember it?” said Harry. “You remembered being out of your body, whilst the other Hermione was here?”

   Hermione was still clutching her chest, but her breathing was slowing as she looked around the playground. “So I’m really home?” she said, then looked at Harry. “You’re…the Harry he replaced aren’t you. I’m in the right reality.”

   Harry bit his lip. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m him. But I didn’t remember anything from when he kicked me out, it was like I just blinked.”

   Hermione was shaking her head. “Limbo didn’t have form before, it was ethereal. But with so many people forced out of their bodies, we gave it solid form.” She looked around at the group. “It’s complicated,” she said, shaking her head tiredly.

   “So you were with Harry and Draco,” Sarah pressed on. “Are they okay? Did I get to Voldemort’s soul in time?”

   “You both did,” said Hermione firmly. “You and the boy called Ron, in the other reality. Both the Voldemorts were destroyed, the Multiverse is safe.”

   Kingsley had resorted to the back cover of his notebook now, having run out of any space inside to write.

   “Wow,” said James, shaking his head.

   “You’re Sarah’s Parents,” said Hermione. Sarah thought it was interesting she said they were her parents, not Harry’s. “I met you when we came back from Germany. And you and Draco took me home?” She looked at Remus. “Mr Lupin?”

   He nodded. “That’s right.”

   “Where are we?” she asked, watching as she moved her feet around Terry’s trainers in confusion. “And why do I feel like I’ve been stood out in the rain?” She looked down sadly at her mangled necklace at that point, but she didn’t seem surprised that it had been warped.

   “We’re in my home town,” said Sarah whilst Harry watched on mutely with Parvati. Her expression was pinched, but Harry just looked contemplative. “It’s a long story, but the other Hermione came here with Harry, Terry and Parvati, looking for my parents. “ She touched Hermione’s arm. “So where’s Draco now, is he coming home?”

   She was desperate to know he was okay, and something uncertain flickered across Hermione’s face.

   “Still in Limbo I guess. He and Harry were…sorting things out.”

   Sarah didn’t like that tone. “But is he stuck there, how can he get home?”

   “Um,” said Hermione. “No,” she said firmly. “No he’s not stuck, he can get home, he should be coming home soon, I’m just not sure how, or where he’d go?”

   “Where else do you think he’d go?” said Harry, his tone almost jovial.

   Everyone turned to look at him, and Sarah felt her eyebrows raising in surprise.

   “Where?” she said, not having the faintest clue, having popped up in her bedroom after activating her own letter.

   But Harry was looking rather pleased with himself as he shrugged, and even managed a tweak of a smile. “If he was going to show up anywhere,” he said, hands slipping into his pockets. “It’s got to be that blasted history classroom.”

 

***

 

   Draco only stared at the empty space between his arms for a moment before he was scrambling to his feet. “What happened!” he cried, bearing down on Merlin’s small form.

   “Where is she!” Harry demanded, leaping to Draco’s side, their previous argument forgotten in the face of Hermione’s disappearance.

   Merlin was still holding his hands up as the wind cut through the snowy graveyard. “I assure you, she is fine. This is what happened before.”

   “Before when?” Draco asked. His heart was thrumming in his chest. Was she alive, is that was he was saying?

   “When Harry activated his letter in the alternate universe,” said Alex carefully, stepping closer with Sir Woofsalot at his heels. “The Harry of that world just faded away.”

   Draco blinked and tried to stop gasping for air. “So you’re saying…”

   “I’m saying she has returned to her own world,” said Merlin. “And her own body.”

   Alex snapped his head around, looking up into the sky. Draco couldn’t help but follow his gaze, and saw a grey and white pigeon soaring through the air, making a beeline for them. “Ah,” said Alex, satisfied, and reached out his hand for the bird to settle on. “Yes,” he said, yanking the little strip of paper from the pigeon’s foot. “Yes indeed, she has made it back quite alright.” He looked up and smiled at the boys. “She’s just waiting to wake up, you know the drill by now.”

   Harry staggered, and Draco’s hand twitched to steady him, but it wasn’t necessary. “She’s okay?” he said faintly, his eyes staring unseeing at the ground. “She made it home.”

   “They both have,” said Merlin, looking at Draco.

   Relief swept up through him. She was better than okay, she was home, in her body, and the other Hermione had made it back too.

   “Harry,” said Draco, his hand raising again to touch his shoulder, but Harry jerked him off and moved away. Draco let his arm fall, and looked over at Alex. The Watcher’s smile had faded too, and they held each other’s gaze for a moment.

   Harry was pressing his hands onto his face, pushing his glasses so hard against the bridge of his nose Draco thought they might break. The shock of Hermione’s disappearance and relief at her getting back to their reality were both fading, leaving the hollow feeling behind that the argument with Harry had caused.

   Draco rubbed his fingers against the mark Voldemort’s sword had left on his torso, the skin still tender to touch. How close had he been to dying, to being in the same predicament as Harry? Now the Voldemorts were gone, Draco, in theory, was free to go home. But Harry couldn’t. Harry was trapped.

   But his situation was worse, Draco reasoned. If he had died at the hand of Voldemort’s blade, he would have slipped into the oblivion that death is supposed to be. But Harry had not died, he had just lost his body, an incident unseen and unsensed. How could he possibly come to terms with that yet? Surely he didn’t _feel_ dead. Draco couldn’t blame him for fighting for a way around it, a way to cheat it.

   “Harry,” he said again, the words lying heavy on his heart. “Harry I’m so sorry.”

   Harry dropped his hands, but as he turned he ignored Draco and just addressed Alex and Merlin. “Ron,” he said. “What about Ron, is he still in danger?”

   Alex looked at Merlin, who merely raised an eyebrow. “Adelaide will know,” said the Watcher with a click of his fingers. He fished out a small notebook from inside his tail coat and a quill, and hastily penned a massage. “Here Woofsy,” he said, waggling the paper at the small dog. Sir Woofsalot hopped about and bounded to his master, sitting as Alex attached the note to his collar. “Go find Aunty Ade, she’s probably with Aunty Effie.”

   Sir Woofsalot barked once, then tore off like a bullet from a gun, soon to be lost from sight in the graveyard.

   “Why not send the pigeon?” asked Merlin.

   “Too tired,” said Alex with a shrug as the bird cooed from its perch on a gravestone.

   Draco glanced at his friend, pacing tensely along the aisle between headstones. “Harry,” he tried for the third time, determined to get him to look at him. “I don’t know what to say.”

   “Then don’t,” said Harry, biting his thumbnail and still refusing to look at him. “Both our Hermiones are back safe, that’s a start.”

   “Yes,” agreed Draco. “It is. But that doesn’t mean-”

   “Doesn’t mean what?” snapped Harry, finally raising his eyes. “That if Ron’s in trouble we can go help him?”

   “No,” said Draco. “We can’t.”

   Harry shook his head. “He’s not your friend, you wouldn’t understand.”

   “Hey,” barked Draco, scowling. “That’s not it at all, I _do_ know Ron, but this isn’t about that. This is about you playing God, stealing my body and meddling in the affairs of the Multiverse. This is about your _death.”_

   He found the word catch in his throat, but he swallowed it down.

   Harry stilled. “I know I’m dead,” he said quietly. “I just…don’t see why that has to be the end?”

   Alex let out a breath. “The end?” he said, stepping carefully around Seamus’ body to be nearer him. “My dear boy I don’t even remember being alive any more, this is only the end if you _let_ it be.”

   Harry glanced at his Watcher before dropping his eyes again.

   “I meant what I said,” said Draco, moving closer to Harry as well. “It should have been me. I’ve already had a second chance at life, how many more can I have?” He managed a small smile. “So I won’t help you mess around with the cosmos, but…” He took in a long breath. “If you want to go home, to your world, I’ll let you have my body, and I can stay here.”

   “No!” cried Harry and Alex together, equally as horrified as each other.

   “No,” repeated Harry. “I won’t kill you, I never wanted to take your body permanently. I just wanted to do some good, while we had the chance.”

   “The universe wouldn’t put up with it in any case,” said Alex, shaking his head. “Seamus said they were hours away from some kind of natural disaster in his world thanks to Hermione’s presence. The world would reject you.”

   Draco looked at Harry, and he could see his friend’s shoulder’s slump. “It can’t all have been for nothing?” he said, his voice small.

   “Nothing?” scoffed Merlin, clasping his hands together under his wide sleeves. “I hardly call saving the Multiverse nothing?”

   “Yeah,” said Draco firmly. “And you saved my world, destroyed our Voldemort, gave me a new life.” He hoped that didn’t sound too selfish, because he meant it very sincerely. “If you’re worried your death won’t mean anything, you’re wrong. But,” he clenched his fists. “That doesn’t make it any more fair, I know.”

   “Life isn’t fair,” said Harry ruefully. He sighed, deeply, and rubbed his temples. “So that’s it? It’s over?”

   Alex raised his eyebrows at Merlin. The small wizard in turn looked around the graveyard. “Limbo is starting to return to its natural state,” he said, nodding. “The half lives will begin to fade, and the Watchers will soon find their realms are the only pockets of form once again.”

   “Where does that leave Harry?” Draco asked, glancing at his friend.

   Alex managed a slow shrug. “I’m not sure entirely,” he said apologetically. “This has never happened before. But if I had to guess I’d say he’d stay corporeal. Especially, if he stuck with me?” There was a note of hope in his voice as he spoke the last few words, and Draco was touched on Harry’s behalf. He wanted to believe he would be okay, that he’d have someone to look after him, and in the short time he’d spent with Alex he felt like he was giving him a genuine offer of friendship.

   Harry stirred from his stupor, and, blinking, returned Alex’s gaze. “If I stayed with you?” he said. “You mean, I could be a Watcher?”

   Alex’s smile faded again. “No,” he said simply. “No I’m afraid not. You’re part of my universe, and we won’t have any new offshoots for quite some time.” He brightened though. “But by staying with me, you’ll stay in this form, human and all that. You could,” he cracked a full smile. “Be my apprentice. I’m sure Seamus would have liked that.”

   Draco felt a pang and looked down to where Seamus was laying, but was shocked to realise he was gone. “Where’d he go?” he cried.

   Merlin had turned away from the group and was moving his hands around the air where Bellatrix had created the oval portal before. “He was no longer in your consciousness, so what you saw as his form has slipped away. His ‘soul’,” he put emphasis on the word. “Or whatever you wish to call it, passed over the moment Voldemort cast his killing curse.”

   “So,” said Harry, his eyes still lingering on the spot where Seamus had lain. “He’s in Heaven?”

   Merlin looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “Or whatever you wish to call it.”

   Draco realised there was no longer any movement around the graveyard. Frowning he turned and scanned the headstones, but all the Romans, the Vikings, the wizards and even the Rhansyk had vanished. The mimicry of Malfoy Manor looked dark and deserted, and the forest had disappeared entirely into shadow.

   “So Limbo is vanishing?” he said.

   Alex shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “Not disappearing,” he said. “Just…rearranging. I would guess that its current rate means Ron has returned, much like Hermione.” He looked around, as if expecting another pigeon.

   “What will happen to Draco then?” asked Harry. He was hugging himself and he looked pale and drawn. But there was a calm sadness about him now which made Draco think he’d resigned himself to staying behind. That was almost worse than the megalomania.

   “Lestrange’s portal is still lingering,” said Merlin, and as Draco turned back to him, he could indeed see the purple outline slowly coming back into view. “I am reconfiguring it for young Mr Malfoy to travel through, back to his own world.”

   Draco felt a rush of conflicting emotions. Joy at the thought of going home, followed by deep sadness. He and Harry had said their goodbyes before, assuming they would never be seeing each other again, but now Draco knew Harry wouldn’t be seeing _anyone_ again. He was leaving him behind, in this place, whatever it would become when he left it.

   “How much time do we have?” he asked, as he and Harry locked eyes.

   “Not long,” said Merlin quietly.

   Draco swallowed a lump in his throat and moved over to Harry. His friend tried to smile. “It’s okay,” he said. “This is right. I should never have crossed into your world, it wasn’t natural. I saved my Sirius, I saved your Sarah. It was probably too much to expect to save myself too.”

   Draco tried to find the words, but his jaw clamped shut. So he just pulled Harry into a hug. “You saved me too,” he managed. “Thank you.”

   Harry patted him on the back, and he let go. He glanced at Alex, and nodded. “I’ll look out for you,” he said. “All of you.”

   Draco nodded. “Yeah,” he said, not sure how true that would be, but he let himself believe it, at least in this final moment. He turned to Alex, who was hovering by the brightly glowing portal. “You look after him, you hear?”

   Alex saluted respectfully. “I promise,” he said. “And I will personally oversee the hiring of your new Watcher. We’ll need someone to do our Seamus proud.”

   Draco nodded, and faced Harry for the last time. “Well done,” he said. “You know, for saving the Multiverse.”

   Harry laughed, tears glistening in his eyes. “You too mate,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder.

   “We are ready,” said Merlin.

   Draco inhaled deeply, and moved purposefully towards the portal. “So this will take me home?” he asked.

   Merlin nodded. “In the blink of an eye.”

   Draco however decided to shut his eyes as he moved forwards. He thought of home, of all the people he was desperate to see. He thought of his friend he was leaving behind, the one that had changed his life in ways he’d never thought possible. And as his feet and hands touched the cool, vibrating surface of the portal, he thought of all the possibilities yet to come, and tumbled into the void.

 

***

 

   Hermione awoke with a gasp, flailing her limbs against the cold, stone floor. Her eyes blinked against the watery dawn light streaming through the window, and as she slowed her breathing she was able to realise where she was.

   A classroom. At Hogwarts. The desks and chairs were all pushed back, and she was sprawled in the centre of the room, glass from the window pane splintered all around her. Elation filled her as she vaulted off the floor, shaking tinkling glass from her clothes.

   And they _were_ her own clothes! Her own _shoes!_  She danced around, laughing at her buckled Mary Janes as they crunched on the shards, sparkling as the sun peeked over the tip of the Forbidden Forest. This was what she had been wearing, the same skirt, the same shirt, when they’d tried to send Draco and Sarah home.

   So it had worked? She was back? This had to be the right universe, it just had to.

   She pulled out her wand from where it usually lived, in her top pocket. _“Reparo!”_ she said, a little audaciously, remembering her promise to herself never again to take any magic for granted. She grinned so hard her face hurt as the glass flew back into place, blocking out the crisp October air. How many times had that window been broken and repaired now? she wondered, inspecting it as the last few slivers zipped from under her feet as she moved. It didn’t even look the least bit cracked or damaged.

   Hermione felt her delirium fading gently as she turned and took in the old History of Magic classroom. The door was firmly shut, and it looked much the same as it had when she, Harry and Ron had been whisked away into their respective alternate realities.

   Were they back yet? Had Ron managed to destroy his Horcrux like Sarah had done? Had Harry and Draco been granted the power to defeat their Voldemorts once and for all? She wished desperately she’d been able to ask Seamus more questions in their short conversation together. But maybe she wouldn’t have to wait long for answers? Maybe Ron or Harry were back too? Or both?

   Eagerly, Hermione laid her wand on her palm. _“Point me,”_ she said, thinking of the boys. Nothing happened, but she wasn’t to be deterred yet, so she tried again first thinking of Harry to repeat the spell, and then Ron. Still no movement came from the wand, and she couldn’t help the little pang of disappointment that nudged at her heart.

   “Never mind,” she said out loud, forcing her voice to be cheery. Magic had not been the only thing that kept her alive in the zombified Godric’s Hollow; perhaps she should learn to rely on it a little less.

   She would go look for them physically. It was still early, judging from the time on her watch. Hermione figured she would go back to the Gryffindor common room, that would be the most likely place for them all to head. She almost swooned at the thought of her bed waiting for her, but instead she would have to be satisfied with one of the armchairs by the fireplace. She had been so cold and so wet for so long, it was such a relief to be dry and warm and-

   “Oh!” she cried, smacking her palm onto her forehead. Which she could do, because it no longer hurt. No headache, no nausea, no aching joints or raking cough. She had been right it seemed, it was the other Hermione’s body having an allergic reaction to the swap. She breathed in long and deep, relishing how wonderful she felt.

   Reinvigorated, she marched towards the door, reaching for the handle. But she stopped before she touched it. What if the boys hadn’t come back yet, what if she left and one of them turned up five minutes later. She frowned, then spied the blackboard. Peeves, as usual, had scribbled a number of offensive profanities across it, mostly about what Hufflepuffs liked to do with their spare time. But sat perched on the bottom lip of the board were a handful of different coloured chalk stubs, as well as an eraser. With a little nod to herself, Hermione strode back over to the board, taking the eraser and rubbing off as much of Peeves’ nonsense as she could. Then, she picked up the longest bit of chalk, and in large, yellow letters, began to write.

   “Harry and Ron,” she said aloud as she pushed the chalk clumsily across the black surface. It wasn’t as easy as the professors made it look. “This is Hermione. I arrived back…” She almost wrote ‘from my parallel universe’, but that might raise some odd questions if anyone else came across the message. She shrugged, they’d know where she’d come back from. She checked her watch again. “I arrived back at 06:20. There is no sign of you, so I am going to the common room to see if you are there. I hope you are good! See you soon, lots of love Hxxx”

   She read the message back a couple of times, then once satisfied replaced the chalk and brushed the dust from her hands. If they weren’t at the common room, she might try some other places, she decided, and then come back here. They were bound to turn up eventually.

   She pulled the door open and headed out into the corridor. The school was eerie and still, as was to be expected at this time in the morning. She might run into Filtch, or maybe a house elf, but otherwise Hermione expected her journey to Gryffindor tower to be unimpeded.

   She was wrong.

   The school may have been quiet, but it was certainly not deserted. She didn’t make it around the second corner before she saw a couple of young Slytherins hustling past, heads down, eyes glancing up at her cautiously.   Hermione assumed they had snuck out during the night and were trying not to get caught, but then a pair of prefects strolled around the corner.

   One of them was Cho Chang, the other her friend Marietta Edgecombe, and the both eyed Hermione with surprise.

   “Are you alright Hermione?” asked Cho.

   “Yeah,” said Hermione, feeling unreasonably guilty, like by being stuck in an alternate reality she had done something wrong. “Lots of people are up?”

   Marietta shrugged, and Hermione noticed that both of them had their wands up. “With all the crazy stuff that happened yesterday, people haven’t really slept. We’re just trying to make sure all the rooms are back where they should be.” She laughed as if to indicate how ridiculous that was, and Hermione found herself joining in.

   Of course, she scolded herself. Sarah had said something about the school being pulled into Limbo, and killer ghosts – the Fixers they had met – that moved the layout around. It was hard to believe that her fellow students had gone through something just as surreal and dangerous as she had. She hadn’t really considered it when Sarah had sat explaining it on that newsagents’ floor, but as she watched another couple of First Years anxiously scuttling past it was much easier to believe. “Yeah,” she said. “Crazy.”

   “Are you going to the medical ward?” Cho asked.

   Hermione blinked. “No,” she said carefully. “Why?”

   “There are a lot of people there,” said Marietta solemnly. “Lots of people we see are going to look for friends there.”

   Hermione swallowed. That sounded ominous. “Have you seen Harry or Ron?” she asked.

   “Not since before all this happened,” said Cho, shaking her head. “Why?” she asked, suddenly concerned. “Are they alright?”

   “I’m sure they’re fine,” Hermione assured them as much as herself. “I’m just going to keep looking.”

   “Good luck,” said Marietta with a wave, and the two Ravenclaws carried on their way.

   Hermione stood for a moment and took it all in. The school had only just been attacked by the Death Eaters last week, freezing everyone in suspended animation whilst they tried to fulfil the prophecy about the Dimensional Leap. And then again, after she, Harry and Ron had been displaced the entire grounds had been sucked out of reality in their wake. Did body swapping just attract obscene amounts of trouble?

   She shook her head and started walking again. If there was any luck in all the universes, they wouldn’t be dealing with any alternate realities again anytime soon. She scoffed. Perhaps she wouldn’t bet against that.

   It was only a ten minute or so journey to Gryffindor Tower, but Hermione felt like she met half the school along the way. Students were huddled in groups talking, or moving purposefully through the castle. Some teachers were organising older students, Hermione guessed doing the same thing as the two Ravenclaw prefects were. She shuddered to think of the rooms being moved around like a Rubik’s cube, and what exactly did these Fixers do to people?

   “Miss Granger?”

   She stopped at the sound of her name, and found herself looking back at a rather awkward Severus Snape. She couldn’t help but glance around in case there was some other Miss Granger standing behind her, but the potions master was definitely talking to her. “Professor,” she said with only a faint amount of surprise.

   He clasped his hands behind his back and studied the walls. “I see you have returned,” he said curtly.

   “Yes,” she said, although that much was of course obvious. “Thank you so much for your help, for the letter.”

   Snape just nodded and continued his study of the stonework. “Did Miss Potter make it home safely, do you know?

   She was a little taken aback by the concern in his voice, but it wasn’t unwelcome. “Yes,” she said with sincere relief. “Sarah made it home. She was remarkably brave.”

   “Did she,” Snape began, but then he seemed to reconsider his words. “There was a letter.”

   “Oh,” said Hermione brightly. “Yes, of course, thank you so much I would never have got home without it.”

   Snape, his eyes now on the floor, managed to look even more awkward. “No,” he said. “Another one, I left it in Sarah’s possession.”

   Hermione considered. “Uh,” she said, herself feeling a little awkward. “Well, she arrived back to her home, which was overrun with cursed people and she had to jump from the second floor.” She tried to look positive. “She probably left it in her room, where it would be safe.”

   Snape chewed on his lip. “Right,” he said. “Okay. Thank you.” He nodded then spun on his heels, vanishing around the corner of the corridor like his usual bat-like self.

   “Nice to see you again too,” Hermione muttered, and carried on her way.

   The sun was climbing further into the sky, illuminating a dry but chilly day. Hermione passed Madam Pomfrey and Professor Sprout coordinating a group of house elves distributing cups of hot chocolate and bacon butties to anyone that wanted, and she couldn’t help but seize some for herself. As soon as she bit down on the bread she felt like she hadn’t eaten for a week and munched through the whole thing in less than a minute, licking ketchup and melted butter off her fingers.

   She blew on her hot chocolate as she walked, only a few turns away from the portrait of the fat lady. But as she rounded the last one she found a gang of mostly Sixth Years sat around the entrance, and she stopped. Dean Thomas was with Seamus Finnigan, the real, live one of her world, and Hermione felt her insides contract. How funny to think she had spoken to the one from Draco’s world, and she glanced upwards as if she could feel him Watching over them right now. They were talking with Ginny Weasley and a Third Year Hermione thought might have been called Natalie, as well as students not from Gryffindor, which would explain why they were outside the tower instead of in.

   Hermione was startled how easy it was for her now to tell the difference between Parvati and Padma Patil. Even though the Parvati she had spent time with was much skinnier, this one still had that pinched look about her face, whereas Padma looked softer, kinder. Zacharias Smith from Hufflepuff was stood beside Michael Corner of Ravenclaw, and surprisingly, Blaise Zabini was stood shyly next to the girl Hermione was now certain was named Natalie McDonald. Her hair was swept back, and she looked a little more like the short-haired version Hermione had met in the other world.

   She might have mused more on her inclusion in the assembled group more, if it hadn’t been for the boy sat on the floor, wearing the trainers that had been loosely tied to Hermione’s feet for the past several hours.

   “Terry,” she said, before she’d realised she’d spoken out loud. Several faces turned round, most of them lighting up at the sight of her.

   “Hermione,” said Parvati warmly, but Hermione couldn’t help but detect a hint of falseness in the tone now. “We were wondering where you were. Did you see Lavender? She went to get us butties.” She smiled and eyed up her hot chocolate as Hermione approached.

   “Hey,” she said wearily to the group. “Uh, how are you guys?”

   “Tired,” said Michael.

   “Worried,” said Ginny, her arms crossed. “You haven’t seen Ron have you?”

   Hermione inhaled. “A while ago,” she lied, thinking that an assurance from Watcher Seamus that he was fine but in an alternate reality a couple of hours ago was basically the same thing. “I was just looking for him actually, I think he’ll come here to the tower soon though.”

   Ginny nodded.

   “It’s been crazy,” said Zacharias, shaking his head. “Those _things_ , Natalie said they hurt the people they touched.”

   The Third Year puffed up her chest importantly. “There was this girl,” she said to Hermione. “She knew all about it, she said they were called Fixers. She helped us and she chased after them!”

   “She said her name was Sarah,” said Blaise quietly, her eyebrows raised.

   Hermione had to squeeze her fingers against her mug to stop her from showing any reaction. “Really?” she said. “That’s strange, I wonder how she knew anything, it all seemed quiet unbelievable to me.”

   “Unbelievable is a relative term, isn’t it?” said Terry Boot. He looked up at Hermione as the rest of the group looked down at him. “When you go to a magic school.”

   Hermione blinked but couldn’t look away from his gaze. She couldn’t ignore the eeriness of how similar those words were to the ones she said to him in the other world. She felt her cheeks going red, the thought of his lips on hers, his hands in her hair-

   “Yes, you’re quite right,” she said. “Well if Ron or Harry haven’t been here, I’ll keep looking.”

   She nodded at the group and headed in the other direction to the one she’d come in, thinking of heading to the Great Hall, or maybe the Library. “If you find them,” grumbled Ginny. “You send them straight to me.” She sounded so much like her mother with those words Hermione decided maybe not to send the boys right over to her, lest they feel her full wrath.

   “I’m glad you’re all alright,” she said over her shoulder. She turned the corner out of their sightline, and took another sip of her hot chocolate. “I just hope we’re all alright,” she said to herself.

 

***

 

   Ron groaned, his eyelids stuck together as he patted his hand around, feeling the hard floor where he was lying. Something sharp nicked his skin, and as he sucked in air through his teeth he finally managed to pry his eyes open. Even though there was a strong breeze blowing he was inside, staring up at a stone ceiling. He blinked a few times, his thoughts fuzzy and slow. Hadn’t he been out in the rain?

   He sat up and looked around at the scattering of glass he was sat in. He frowned. Why would he possibly be sat on glass? He turned, and saw that the breeze was coming from a shattered window, and he took a moment to absorb what he was seeing.

   He knew this place, it was that classroom they had tried to send Draco and Sarah home from. He gasped, and, trying not to cut himself again, leapt to his feet. He remembered, he’d got a letter, from Snape. He’d been in another reality, in another country at another school for magic. Did that mean it had worked, was he home?

   He looked around the classroom as he shook the glass out of his clothes. The door was open ajar, but what caught his eye was the writing on the blackboard. It was addressed to him and Harry, and he felt a grin splitting onto his face as he walked over.

_‘Harry and Ron, This is Hermione. I arrived back at 06:20. There is no sign of you, so I am going to the common room to see if you are there. I hope you are good! See you soon, lots of love Hxxx’_

   Ron punched the air. Hermione was already home, maybe Harry too? He checked his watch and read the message a couple more times, relief making his breath shallow. Would Harry have added to the note, or just gone to look for Hermione? Ron decided he’d just go to the common room and find out, but then paused. It would probably be a good idea for _him_ to add to the note, he thought, so picked up a stick of purple chalk and added ‘Me too! Ron.’

   He dropped the chalk back down and stretched out his back and arms with a guttural noise at the back of his throat. With a start he suddenly realised his awful headache was gone, and he no longer wanted to throw his guts up.

   “Probably just needed a good sleep,” he said to himself cheerfully, rolling and cracking his neck then jumping up and down. Normally he would have doubted he could sleep at all on a stone floor crunchy with glass, but he’d been awake for so long in the other world, and fighting that hat had taken a lot out of him.

   It was a little after seven in the morning, so he assumed no one would be out of their dorms yet as he ventured out into the corridor, but almost right away he ran into Katie Bell. “Oh,” said the Seventh Year, surprised. “Ron, are you alright?”

   “Uh,” he said, put out. “Yeah, fine.” That was the truth after all.

   “Goodness me,” she said, peering round him into the old classroom. “What happened there?”

   “Uh,” said Ron again. “The window broke?” Why hadn’t he thought to repair it, he cursed himself.

   “Are you sure you’re alright?” Katie asked again, looking him up and down. “Did it happen when the rooms moved around?”

   Ron’s head slowly turned back from looking in the classroom. “What?” he said.

   “You know,” said Katie, stepping inside and fixing the window pane with a flick of her wand. “I’ve seen quite a lot of stuff that got damaged when it happened.”

   Ron could tell his confusion was showing on his face, but he tried to smooth it out. “I’ve been unconscious for a while,” he blurted out. Not only was it true, but he felt it might get him out of not knowing what had happened, because something clearly had.

   “Oh you poor thing,” said Katie. Her back was to Hermione’s message, and Ron would quite like to keep it that way, so began reversing out of the door again, hoping she would follow.

   “Oh I’m fine,” said Ron dismissively with a wave of his hand. “I feel fine.”

   Katie, thankfully, followed him without glancing over her shoulder. “Well, do you want me to take you to the hospital wing?” she asked. “There’s lots of people there apparently, if you got concussion when the room moved it might be a good idea to get checked out?”

   Ron held up his hands. “Honestly,” he said. “I feel fine. I really need to find Hermione, you haven’t seen her have you?”

   Katie shook her head. “Sorry, not since breakfast yesterday, I assumed you were both with Harry.”

   “Have you seen him then?” asked Ron hopefully.

   “Er, no,” admitted Katie. “Sorry, I meant that you guys are always together, you know?”

   “Oh,” said Ron. “Right, yeah. Okay, well I’m going to look for them then. Thanks for fixing the window.” He smiled and gave her a little nod, then spun on his heels and strode off before she could try and insist he go to medical with her.

   Loads of people were milling around, some of them munching on bacon butties that made Ron’s stomach rumble. It wasn’t far to get the Gryffindor Tower from the old classroom, but it seemed to take longer as everyone was moving slowly. Ron wasn’t sure what had happened while he’d been gone, but it had put people in a funny mood that was for sure.

   He decided to take a longer route, but one he assumed would be deserted and therefore enable him to move faster through the school. He waited until a gaggle of Ravenclaws walked past, talking fervently about angry black clouds as they rounded the corner and went out of sight. “Clouds?” muttered Ron to himself as he tickled the gargoyle on a plinth under its chin. Obligingly, it sprung out of his way to reveal several missing stones in the wall, which he quickly scuttled through before it moved back or someone else came around the corner.

   _“Lumos,”_ he said, holding his wand out in front of him to light the way down the twisty, cramped tunnel. He felt his pulse rising unexpectedly, and he stopped after only a few paces. This was _Hogwarts,_ he told himself. e waHe was safe, there was nothing going to pop out at him and try and kill him. But after everything that had happened in Salem, it took a him a while to steady his heart, and in the end he just decided to race through the passageway as quickly as possible.

   It would only take him a few minutes he knew, but in the dark and shadows it seemed to take longer. “No,” he said sternly aloud to himself. “You can handle this, you beat all the trails and stopped the soul. No one is chasing you and no one wants the Philosopher’s Stone.”

   “Who’s there?”

   Ron swore his heart almost stopped all together as he flattened into the stone wall, gasping and gripping him wand so hard it was in danger of breaking. The voice had been a little faint, like the speaker was a few turns away, and there was a wet quality to it that Ron couldn’t quite place.

   “Hello?” they said. The voice was male, and Ron realised he recognised it, but he didn’t sound right. “Pansy, I swear – if that’s you? I told you to _leave me alone.”_

   Ron considered turning around, but the strangeness of the past week kept him walking instead. “It’s not Pansy,” he said, perhaps a little stupidly. He squeezed past a particularly narrow turn, and found himself looking down at the small, shuddering figure of Draco Malfoy.

   He had been crying, that much was clear, and from the bluish tinge to his lips he had probably been sitting on the ground, in the dark, for quite some time. Ron only had a moment to take this in under his wand light, before Draco equally had time to look up and see who was talking to him.

   _“Weasley!”_ he snarled, leaping to his feet and slamming his whole body into Ron’s, crashing them both into the stone wall.

   “Oi!” cried Ron, struggling against him. “Get off me!”

   “This is your fault,” said Malfoy somewhat hysterically, shoving him again. “All your fault! I was playing cards, then I was in some library that turned into a bloody campsite! They told me I’d lost my body, that some other Draco had it, and then suddenly I was back _here,_ in the school! And they’re telling me – telling me-”

   A sob raked through his chest, and he let go of Ron with a final shove into the wall, staggering away and covering his face.

   Ron just watched, his breath shallow and his back stinging from where a crooked bit of stone had jabbed into his shoulder blade. So this was definitely the Malfoy he was used to, the one the other Draco had taken the place of. He wasn’t sure what he meant about the campsite, but he could guess what he was upset about.

   “Draco,” he said, the name alien in his mouth. This was Malfoy, he wasn’t sure why he’d called him Draco.

   “My mum,” he whispered through his hands, his whole body shaking. “They said I was there, they didn’t understand…”

   “I’m sorry,” said Ron awkwardly, but he meant it. He had been there, he’d seen it, and it had been awful. Should he tell Malfoy how desperate his mum had been, how hard she’d tried to save him? How crazy the other Draco had gone, throwing himself in the path of You-Know-Who’s killing curse?

   “You’re _sorry?”_ sneered Malfoy, sniffing and wiping his eyes on the back of his sleeve. “What does that matter? You’re _sorry!_ I lose my body, to some stranger, go to some place where I’m not even _alive_ anymore, and when I get back it’s been a week, a whole _week!_ My mother is dead, my father’s in prison and I’ve been _scarred.”_ He yanked up his damp sleeve and thrust the inside of his wrist into Ron’s face, showing him the figure of eight Draco had given himself when You-Know-Who’s curse had hit. Ron glanced from it to Malfoy, not knowing what to say.

   “I know,” he said, holding up his hands as Malfoy snatched his arm back and walked a few feet away. “And I am sorry, really, she was only trying to protect you-”

   “HIM!” shouted Malfoy. “That other…me.” He was so angry he could barely get the words past his teeth. “We weren’t supposed to be there, my father said so, it was all planned out-”

   “So you knew,” said Ron, his own anger flaring. He was the only one with a lit wand still, and he pointed it accusingly at Malfoy. “You knew they were going to attack the school?”

   Malfoy stilled, his breathing still ragged but his body becoming limp. “No,” he rasped. “No, nothing like that.” His brow was creased and troubled. “He would have said, he couldn’t have known…”

   “Your dad,” said Ron sternly. “Was right at the front of it all, your crazy Aunt too. And let me tell you, he didn’t do a thing to save your mum, it was all Draco and Harry.”

   “Shut up,” stammered Malfoy, his face white in the dim wand light. “You’re lying.”

   “Do you really think your dad stood up to You-Know-Who?” Ron demanded. He knew maybe he was being harsh, but he wasn’t going to stand for Malfoy blaming him, Harry, or even the other Draco. He may not have known him like Harry had, but he’d seemed pretty decent in the time Ron had spent with him. “We heard him, you were supposed to be frozen like everyone else, but when you ended up at the Ministry your mum came to rescue you.”

   “What?” Malfoy looked pained.

   “Yeah,” said Ron defiantly, as if challenging Malfoy to disagree. “Your mum, not your dad. She was terrified, but even when You-Know-Who said he was going to kill you, she was the one who tried to save you, your dad just-”

   “I said SHUT UP!” yelled Malfoy, lunging for him again, but Ron was ready for him.

   _“Protego!”_

   Malfoy rebounded off his shield charm, stunned. But Ron felt bad, seeing how his face lost the anger so quickly, grief weighing him down. The two boys looked at each other for a moment, startled.

   Ron dropped his shield. “I’m sorry,” he said again, but with more resolution this time. “I really am. I know what you’ve been through, sort of, and it’s rubbish, trust me.” He swallowed. “I’ve seen too many people die this week.”

   “She stood up for me?” Malfoy asked. Something about his face relaxed, and for just a second Ron could see the same guy he’d been visiting in the hospital with Harry, Hermione and Sarah.

   He nodded. “She was brilliant.”

   Malfoy’s face contorted, somewhere between heartbreak and fury, and then he was back to the boy who had tormented Harry and the rest of them his whole school career. “Get out of my way!” he snapped, shoving past Ron and squeezing around the narrow corner to storm down the way Ron had just come walked.

   Ron listened as his hiccups faded into the darkness, watching after him, letting his thoughts settle. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, a sensation he never thought he’d experience for Draco Malfoy. But there had been something that had turned the other Draco into a nicer person, before that he’d been just like their selfish, arrogant and mean version, or so Harry had said. Maybe the nicer one was lurking in this Malfoy too? Maybe he needed a tragedy like the other one had to be a decent human being?

   Ron shrugged. Now that the Slytherin had gone, he was finding he cared less. He’d been used to the unpleasant Malfoy for several years, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if that was how he was going to remain.

   He carried on walking towards the end of the passageway, knowing he wasn’t far away now from the exit. Hermione hadn’t arrived much earlier than he had, if he was lucky he could maybe still catch her at the common room.

   Carefully, he eased the portrait open that led back out into the corridor. A couple of Hufflepuff Second Years were stood still, watching him as he tumbled rather gracelessly onto the floor. “Hi,” said Ron sheepishly, and the boys just raised their eyebrows and carried on walking. Ron was grumbling about how they didn’t know anything anyway, and how he’d like to see how they’d manage to get out of the tunnel like that on their short legs, when someone screeched him name.

   _“Ron!”_

   He turned to see a flurry of brown hair pounce on him and knock him completely to the ground.

   “Oof!” he gasped.

   “Sorry, sorry!” said the voice behind the hair, and after a second’s scrambling, Ron was sitting grasping hands with an excitable, fervent and very wild looking Hermione Granger.

   “Hermione,” he breathed with feeling, throwing his arms around her and hugging her for all she was worth. “I was worried I would never see you again.”

   “Me neither!” she cried, tears running down he face when she pulled away from him. “Seamus said you were in another world, in America.”

   Ron blinked. “You spoke to him too?”

   “Oh yes,” said Hermione nodding. “Only for a few minutes. He told me you were okay, but I couldn’t help worrying.”

   Ron harrumphed. “Interesting version of ‘okay’.”

   Hermione frowned. “What happened?” she asked, getting to her feet and pulling him up too.

   “Lots,” said Ron with a shrug. “What about you, you alright?”

   Hermione blinked, looking down the corridor and sighing. “I guess so,” she said. “As much as can be expected. Have you seen Harry yet?”

   Ron deflated. “No,” he said. “I guess you haven’t either?”

   She shook her head. “He’s probably sorting stuff out, in Limbo.”

   Ron nodded enthusiastically. “I had to help him, there was this bit of You-Know-Who’s soul-”

   “Me too!” cried Hermione, shaking her hands in between them both. “Sarah got it in the end, ours was a necklace, what was yours?”

   Ron couldn’t help feel a little put out. “Oh,” he said. “I thought I was helping Harry?”

   “You were helping Draco,” said Hermione warmly. “They both had a Horcrux linked to their Voldemorts.”

   Ron winced only briefly at her use of You-Know-Who’s name, before he realised what she’d said. “Horcrux,” he exclaimed happily. “That’s what it was called.”

   “We both had to destroy ours,” said Hermione kindly. “So they both could face their Voldemorts. Didn’t Seamus explain it to you?”

   Ron couldn’t help but bark a small laugh and rub the back of his neck. “It’s a little hazy,” he admitted. “There was a lot going on.”

   Hermione looked up and down the corridor. “Well,” she said. “I’ve already been to the common room, and Harry wasn’t there so maybe we should head back to History of Magic classroom, wait for him there? Then maybe we can swap inter-dimensional stories along the way.” She winked and looped her arm through his.

   Ron couldn’t help but smile too. He would never forget the terror of waking on that basketball court, not for as long as he lived. To be back home, reunited with one of the most important people in his life, when at times he felt all hope was lost, he felt he could burst with relief.

   “I bet you one galleon yours isn’t as weird as mine,” he told her.

   Hermione actually threw her head back and laughed. “I bet yours doesn’t have zombies or shoe swapping in it.”

   “No,” admitted Ron as they began to walk. “But it does have the American Magic School.”

   _“Noo,”_ said Hermione eagerly, her face lighting up. “Tell me, tell me!”

   They headed slowly back towards the History classroom, taking the most obvious route and hoping to run into Harry coming to find them. It also lead them past a gaggle of house elves handing out the bacon butties Ron had seen people with before, and he snagged three before Hermione could protest. “I haven’t eaten since lunchtime _yesterday,”_ he said, mildly horrified at his own misfortune as Hermione shook her head and took two hot chocolates.

   She took over talking as the hot sandwiches disappeared one by one down his gullet. He listened as she described arriving in Draco and Sarah’s world, and after how they couldn’t contact Harry’s parents they went to Godric’s Hollow.

   “The whole town had been turned into _zombies?”_ he asked.

   She tutted. “I’m getting to that, don’t interrupt.”

   The classroom was still empty when they got back to it, and he watched Hermione take in his additional note as they both realised Harry had not added to it. “I guess he’s not back yet,” said Hermione with a touch of forced cheeriness. “We’ll just wait for him.”

   She picked up one of the upside down chairs from off the stacked tables, and Ron copied. As soon as he placed his next to hers, she flicked her wand and transfigured them into plush arm chairs, then turned the empty bin into a foot stool. “Ahh,” sighed Ron, sinking into his one, snuggling his shoulders down into the comfy fabric.

   “So what was Salem like?” asked Hermione, tucking her knees under her chin. Ron couldn’t help but chuckle. Of course Hermione would know about the American school and where it was, but he did he best to start from the very beginning and tell her everything. A lump rose in his throat whenever he mentioned Chris, and he had to take a moment when he got to the bit with Bellatrix in the flying key room. But Hermione was a patient listener, and good at asking questions when he didn’t explain things quite right.

   He could feel his eyes getting heavy as he spoke, and even as Hermione listened he could see her nodding off as well. Harry wasn’t back yet though, he wanted to be awake when he was.

   But sleep was overpowering him, and after a few minutes he realised he’d stopped talking entirely.

   Maybe five minutes wouldn’t hurt. He’d wake up with the commotion of Harry getting back anyway. Just five minutes sleep would be fine.

 

***

 

   As soon as Draco’s foot touched the dazzling portal he felt his body being pulled at a great rate, but at the same time his other foot was still on the ground in the Limbo graveyard. He squinted his eyes against the spectacular array of purples and golds flashing and streaming around him, and the further he stepped into the void, the more his skin felt like it was being squeezed, compressed by some invisible force.

   He was almost too afraid to breath; was there air? Should he hold his breath? He gritted his teeth and tried to hold out, pressing forward until he could no longer feel his trainer resting on the muddy grass.

   The moment his second foot lifted off, he felt his first touching slowly down on something solid. Draco raised his hand instinctively, shielding his face. He couldn’t see anything but the fervent, swirling colours, like he was caught in a turbulent whirlpool, but his whole foot was definitely flat now.

   It was hard to tell how much he was moving, but he was able to keep propelling his body forwards through sheer will if nothing else.

   He could tell his leg was feeling cooler, like it was dangling out a window in a breeze. Just a little further, he urged himself. You’re almost home, just keep going…

   All of a sudden he burst through the membrane and found himself tripping out of the portal and into contrastingly dim room, righting his footing and gasping for breath.

   “Draco?”

   He was too disorientated to jump or spin around, but as his breathing slowed he was able to frown and look to where the voice had come from.

   They were in a Hogwarts classroom, the old History one. It was gloomy but not totally dark, as dawn was gradually breaking beyond the large window behind him. In the weak shadows Draco saw someone stand from a chair tucked in by the blackboard, someone wringing their hands as they took a step forward.

   Draco’s face split into a grin so wide it hurt. “Hermione,” he said, stumbling in his haste to reach her, but she was already running into him, crashing together in a mess of limbs and hair and relief.

   “You’re back!” she cried as she squeezed him so hard he feared a rib might crack. “I’m so sorry, the other Hermione left my body so I got sucked back in, but I was so worried about you, about Harry – is he okay, has he calmed down? What happened, I didn’t-”

   “Hey, hey,” laughed Draco, stoking her tangled hair. She looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, but he didn’t care in the slightest. “It’s okay, everything’s fine.”

   “Fine?” said Hermione, leaning back to look at him. He felt his smile fade a little.

   “Well,” he sighed. “Not fine. Harry still doesn’t have a body, he’s still in Limbo. But he’s not talking crazy any more, I left him with Alex.” He brushed some more of her hair out of her eyes. “He promised he’d look after him.”

   Hermione sighed and rested her temple on Draco’s chest. “I suppose,” she said. “That’s the best we can hope for.”

   Draco closed his eyes, the disorientation from the portal finally subsiding. “I wish there was something else I could have done.”

   There was a sudden and violent thumping on the door to the classroom. “Oi!” shouted a voice. “We can hear you! Is he back? Let us in!”

   Hermione laughed and caught Draco’s eye, before letting him go, taking his hand, and moving to the door to open it. Draco had recognised Sarah’s voice with a thrill, but it was nothing compared to the sight that greeted him once the door swung open.

   With a yell, Sarah launched herself into Draco’s arms, knocking him backwards as she squealed. Behind her were her parents, Draco’s temporary guardians over the summer when he’d left Malfoy Manor. Lily seized Draco and Sarah both in her arms, hugging them and kissing the top of his head, whilst James watched on, smiling with his hands in his pockets.

   Sirius and Remus came into the room to flank him, and once Lily gave the first signs of loosening her grip, Sirius hopped in, ruffling Draco’s hair like a child. “We were worried about you mate,” he said, clearing his throat as he stepped away again.

   The next people into the room were slightly more surprising. Harry and Parvati walked cautiously in, eyes on Draco like he might attack them or something. Draco felt his insides contract at seeing Harry, but he could tell instantly from his body language this was the one from his world. Still, the similarities were obviously there, and he groped automatically for Hermione’s hand. She gripped his tight, and he allowed the moment to pass. His Harry was gone, this was an entirely different person.

   Although when he opened his mouth, he still managed to surprise Draco. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said stiffly. Parvati refrained from saying anything nasty at all, which Draco certainly counted as an improvement.

   Behind them was their friend Terry Boot, which seemed odd to Draco. But no one else appeared put out by his being there, and he walked up to Draco like he was an old friend. “Glad you’re back mate,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Sarah’s told me a lot about you.”

   Draco was taken aback, but Sarah was nodding eagerly, and he decided some things must have gone on whilst he was away. “Thanks,” he said as genuinely as he could, and tried to ignore Parvati’s flicker of a scowl.

   Finally, two more people strode into the classroom, the first marching straight up to Draco and punching him hard on the arm. “Ow,” he said pointedly, but Blaise Zabini just arched an eyebrow at him.

   “You were gone a long time,” she said coolly.

   Draco couldn’t help but smile as he rubbed his arm. “Nice to see you too.”

   The final entrant to the room was an apprehensive looking Dean Thomas, who was hovering over Blaise’s shoulder, regarding everyone with wide eyes. Upon catching Draco’s he nodded and smiled. “Alright mate,” he said in his East London intonation, offering his hand for a heartfelt shake. “Sarah came to find us, said you would be popping back here of all places.”

   Draco glanced at Sarah, trying to gauge what he should reply, but she waved a hand dismissively at him. “They know everything,” she said, almost bored. “We’ve been hanging around a while, seemed pointless to carry on lying.”

   Draco felt a wave of guilt and darted his eyes straight back to Blaise. “Everything?”

   She casually walloped him again, much to the amusement of the room. “I can’t believe you kept such a good story from me,” she said, the edge of her lips twitching. “And I’m done beating you now, you can relax.”

   “Thanks,” muttered Draco, still rubbing his arm, but it was in good humour.

   There was a soft thudding on the window, and Draco turned his head, eyebrows raised. “Sunny!” he cried pleasantly, as the little ball of sunshine bobbed about in delight.

   “He’s missed you,” said Blaise warmly.

   Draco looked back around, and realised everyone was staring at him. Everyone except Terry Boot, who until he noticed the lull in conversation was staring at Hermione. Sarah spotted this too, and was looking sadly between the two. Once Terry realised though he smiled and looked at Draco instead as if nothing had happened.

   Draco thought it odd, but decided to mention it to Sarah another time.

   “You were with him?” asked Lily, breaking the silence. “The other Harry?” Her eyes glanced towards her own Harry, but he seemed calm enough. Draco couldn’t quite believe they were both standing in the same room together and not trading blows.

   He nodded. “I suppose Sarah has explained we were sent there?”

   “I’m sorry,” said Harry clearly and loudly. Draco frowned and looked at him.

   “For what?”

   Sarah stepped between them. “Harry lost his temper in the room below us, ranting about the other Harry and all that. It triggered the Dimensional Leap but we’ve already _established_ ,” she threw a stern look at him. “That it wasn’t his fault, it was just an accident.”

   Harry nodded as Draco processed this. He was surprised to find he wasn’t all that angry. “Still,” said Harry. “I am sorry. Sarah said you’ve been through a lot.”

   Hermione caught Draco’s eye. “But it’s over now,” she said. “Everyone is where they should be.”

   “So Harry’s okay too?” asked Sarah.

   Sirius raised his eyebrows at Draco. “Hermione said he was with you, that you each had a version of Voldemort to face?”

   Draco could feel Hermione’s hand hot in his own and his skin prickled uncomfortably. But she gave him a little squeeze as she smiled at the others. “I told them you both won your battles, how brave you were.”

   Draco nodded and swallowed his grief. “Yeah,” he said preparing to lie. “We did. And he went home too. So, I guess we won’t ever see him again. It’s all finished.”

   Sarah gave a little shuddery sigh, and nodded. “Well, one Harry Potter’s probably enough,” she said, nudging her brother playfully with her shoulder. “Isn’t it?” Harry surprised Draco yet again by putting his arm around his sister.

   “Yes it is,” agreed James, stepping forward to put a hand on each of his children’s backs. “Do you really think it’s all over?”

   Draco nodded. “The Horcruxes are destroyed and so are the Voldemorts. I don’t think anyone’s in a hurry to go exploring alternate realities any time soon.”

   “Kingsley will be most pleased,” said Remus.

   “They said,” piped up Parvati, her voice small. “That you saw Seamus. That he’s...some sort of guardian?”

   “Watcher,” said Draco automatically.

   “He’s in charge of our universe,” added Hermione, that bright look still on her face. “The UK in our universe anyway, I think there are others for other countries.”

   Draco noticed her use of a non-committal tense. It didn’t sit entirely well with him, lying to them all, but the proud look on Sarah’s face told him it would do more harm than good to amend what had been true an hour ago.

   “So no more fighting,” said Sarah to her brother and Parvati as she detached from Harry, and Terry gave a little grin from behind them. “We’re all sad that Seamus had to leave us, but he’s got a new life now, and it would be selfish to keep being mad at Draco and Hermione. Okay?”

   Harry looked over at them, at Draco especially. “A lot of crazy stuff has happened,” he said after a moment or too. “Maybe it’d be best to take it from here, a fresh start?”

   There was something about his face, a flicker of the other Harry that Draco swore he saw, if only for a second. “Sounds good to me.”

   To his astonishment, Harry extended his hand towards him, and Draco only hesitated briefly before offering his own, and the two shook firmly once.

   As he took his hand back, his right hand, he spotted something extraordinary. Or, nothing extraordinary to be precise. His wrist, where the figure of eight had been for the past week in the other world, where his Dark Mark had been for the past few years, was completely blank. No scar, no tattoo. He touched it briefly with his thumb, and Hermione noticed too, exchanging a glance with him.

   “Right,” said James, clapping his hands together. “Well as fun as it’s been coming back to school, Filtch still has a detention he owes Padfoot, Moony and I. So how about we take this little party somewhere with more firewhisky and less blackboards to clean?”

   “Hog’s Head?” suggested Sirius.

   “At this hour?” questioned Lily.

James shrugged. “Call it inter-dimensional jet-lag, feels like 5pm to me.”

   “And the children?” said Remus, an eyebrow raised.

   “We promise not to be corrupted,” assured Blaise. “Anyway Dean has never had a Butterbeer.” Dean nodded eagerly.

   Terry draped his arm around Harry’s shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think now Ziggy’s lost the stick up his rear, he could do with a little corrupting.”

   General laughter filled the room as Harry scowled semi-seriously at the Ravenclaw and the adults debated briefly the best way to get into Hogsmead. Hermione leaned into Draco’s side, and he suddenly found Sarah doing the same on the other. “Welcome home,” murmured the youngest Potter.

   “Home,” Draco repeated as the group began filing out of the old History of Magic classroom. Lily winked at him before she took James’ hand and exited to the corridor. “I suppose I am home,” he said, smiling at each of the girls in turn.

 

***

 

   Harry needed more time. He hadn’t expected this so soon. Everything had changed so fast, and now here he was, stood in the place where it had all began.

   He wasn’t really stood there, he knew. But it was the closest he was ever going to get, and that made it seem more real to him in that moment.

   He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He could feel his skin hot under his finger tips, he could sense the dull ache behind his eyes, he could taste the saliva in his mouth; why couldn’t it just be _real?_

   He had thought Ron and Hermione wouldn’t fall asleep until the evening. Alex had explained everything he’d needed to know to reach out to them, to talk to them in their unconscious state, but he had thought he’d have all day to prepare for it.

   It had taken them less than an hour to pass out, curled up in the arm chairs Hermione had conjured in the old History of Magic classroom. Alex had suggested he hold off, give himself the time he’d assumed he would have, but Harry knew they were waiting for him, waiting for him to come home. It seemed cruel to keep them hanging on.

   But since he had walked through the door from Limbo and into their dream version of the classroom, all he had done was just stand and watch them. They looked so peaceful. He had managed to catch up on most of what had happened to them in their own parallel universes, and his heart swelled with pride thinking all they had overcome.

   What should he do, shake them? Shout? They still looked very much asleep, and Alex hadn’t explained how to wake them whilst still in their dreams. The way he’d told it, Seamus had been waiting for them when they’d nodded off, making it seem to them that they were still awake. And when Alex had stumbled upon him and Ron in the forest in Germany, he had been trying to send Harry home, but instead linked him and Ron through their dreams in the different realities. Maybe he should wait until later after all? Maybe he could sit in the Gryffindor tower until bedtime, was that how it worked?

   Maybe he could go get Alex? It might be easier to do this with his help.

   “Harry?”

   He looked up with a start. Hermione was no longer asleep, at least, not in her dream. At the sound of her voice, Ron ‘woke up’ too, and Harry stared at them both, panicked.

   “Harry!” cried Ron as the two of them scrambled to their feet, but Harry couldn’t help it. He stumbled backwards, hitting the closed door and raising his hands.

   “Hold on,” he said, causing them to stop, confusion on their faces. “Just...hold on a second.”

   “We’ve been waiting for you,” said Ron eagerly. “We only got back a while ago, we knew you’d pop up eventually.”

   But Hermione was frowning. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

   Harry licked his lips. This was going to be so much harder than he realised. “You’re still asleep,” was all he managed to say.

   Ron looked down at himself. “No we’re not,” he said.

   Hermione was shaking her head. “What do you mean? How can we still be asleep?”

   Harry felt his eyes moving between them both, taking in every detail he could. His heart was thrumming in his chest and his palms were clammy. “Like when Seamus came to talk to you,” he said. “In the other realities. You’re dreaming.”

   Ron pulled a disbelieving face, and turned to Hermione. “I feel pretty awake,” he said to her.

   But she shook her head. “You were delirious before,” she said. “You said it was hazy. When I spoke to Seamus it was like he just appeared in the room.” She turned back to Harry, as did Ron.

   He sighed and tried to smile. “You’re dreaming,” he said.

   Hermione folded her arms. “Okay,” she said. “So, what? Are you our Harry, or some other one?”

   “No,” said Harry, mildly amused by Hermione’s typical pragmatism. “I’m your Harry, this is my universe.”

   “So why are you talking to us like this?” she asked. “Are you still in Limbo?”

   “What happened?” added Ron. “I thought we got the Horcruxes, I thought everything was sorted?”

   Harry shook his head. “No you did, you were great,” he insisted. “The Voldemorts were stopped, the Multiverse is safe.”

   So...” said Hermione. “Why are you talking to us like this?”

   Harry swallowed. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m still in Limbo.”

   “Okay,” said Ron with a shrug. “So when are you coming home?”

   Harry could feel his hands shaking, so he pressed them against his jeans. “I’m not.”

   There was a moment of stillness. His gaze was lost somewhere between the stone floor and his friend’s shoes, but he could tell they weren’t moving an inch. “What?” said Ron.

   “I don’t understand,” said Hermione, her voice tight.

   “The Voldemorts,” said Harry. “Wanted to move between the universes. To do that, they needed mine and Draco’s bodies, to possess. Draco won his battle before his one got a chance, but...but I was too late.”

   “I thought you said you destroyed him,” said Hermione, anger encroaching on her words. “What are you talking about, possessing? Seamus didn’t say anything about that.”

   Harry shook his head. “We didn’t know, not until the very end, when Voldemort...did what he did to me.”

   “So you can get your body back,” said Ron. “You just get it back right, and come home?”

   Harry took a breath. “There was an accident, the two got separated, Voldemort’s soul and my body, but without my soul inside I...I died.”   He closed his eyes as his fists bunched. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”

   “Goodbye?” repeated Ron. “I don’t get it, you’re standing right there.”

   “No,” said Harry. “I’m not. You’re still asleep in those chairs, I’m only here in your minds.”

   “But I can _see_ you,” said Ron. “I don’t get it, what are you trying to say!”

   Harry steeled himself. “That I can’t come home,” he said through gritted teeth.

   “Says who?” snapped Hermione. “Where’s your body, how long have you been separated? There must be some-”

   “It got thrown into another world,” said Harry, empty and sad. “It’s just...lost. I have no body to come back in, I have nothing physical left.”

   Hermione was shaking her head. “No,” she said. “No I don’t believe it.”

   “No,” repeated Ron forcefully. “No, no that can’t, you can’t just – there must be some _way-”_

   Harry took a deep breath. “There isn’t,” he said. “Believe me. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to upset you, I just wanted to let you know what happened, I couldn’t just leave-”

   Hermione burst into tears, and within a second she had crossed the few feet between them and thrown her arms around him. He leant into her, gripping tightly. “No,” she whimpered. “No, it can’t end like this, after everything, it can’t.”

   “I’m sorry,” said Harry again.

   “Don’t be sorry,” shouted Ron, and Harry and Hermione pulled apart. “Fix it! You have to come back, you can’t just leave us, we need you!”

   “I need you too,” said Harry around the lump that had risen in his throat. “But there’s nothing I can do.”

   This was awful, he should have just waited like Alex had said, he was making things worse.

   “If we had some time,” said Hermione. “We could think of something?”

   Harry rubbed his eyes. “I don’t have a body,” he said. “I said the same thing, but just because I’m talking and walking don’t let that fool you.” He shrugged. “I’m dead.”

   “But-” said Ron.

   “But,” interrupted Harry. “I think...I think that’s okay. I never should have crossed universes, I never should have messed everything up like I did. The world has to reset itself.”

   Hermione hiccupped. “Harry that doesn’t make any sense,” she cried.

   Harry shook his head. “It does to me. Or at least, it’s starting to.”

   The three of them looked forlornly at one another. “So that’s it?” asked Ron.

   Harry felt his face tighten. “I guess so,” he said. “I wanted to come see you, one last time.”

   “And you’ll be in Limbo?” asked Hermione.

   He nodded. “Alex said he’d look after me. I’m not on my own.”

   Hermione’s face dissolved again. “But you can visit us, like this?” she said. “This isn’t goodbye, it isn’t the end?”

   “I don’t know,” said Harry. “This is more than most people get when they die.”

   “But you’re not most people,” said Ron pleadingly. “Don’t go Harry, please.”

   “I have to,” he said, groping for the door handle behind him. “I have to.”

   “No,” said Hermione as he cracked the door.

   “Can you do me a favour?” he asked. “Just one last thing? Can you...can you tell Sirius? I wanted to do it myself, but I don’t know if I can.” He felt cowardly, but he just wanted to run, to escape.

   “Harry-” said Hermione.

   “Promise me,” insisted Harry.

   Hermione inhaled and steadied her voice. “We promise.”

   “And Draco,” said Harry. “The one here. I know he’s always been a git, but try not to be too hard on him.”

   Ron nodded, his jaw clamped shut.

   Harry pulled the door a few more inches, and Hermione gasped, but didn’t say anything. Her and Ron were clinging on to one another, only a foot or so away from him. “Goodbye,” said Harry. “I love you both.”

   And with that he moved around the door, filing through the crack and slamming it in his wake.  

 

***

 

   Alex was standing in the shadows for a few minutes before Sirius Black noticed him. The wizard was sat on a bench, head bowed and his hands clasped between his knees. Alex knew he didn’t have long to intrude on his dream, or in this universe even, but he was lost in his own muddled thoughts and regrets, some he knew he was sharing with Sirius at that very moment.

   Eventually though, he did raise his head.

   “Alex?” he said. His voice was hoarse and his eyes were blood shot. “What’s happening, am I back-”

   “No,” said Alex quickly, shaking his head and stepping into the dim morning light. “You’re not back in Limbo. You’ve just nodded off. I wanted to come see you, see how you were doing.”

   Sirius grimaced and leaned back against the stone wall. They were in a small alcove attached to the church in Godric’s Hollow, and outside it was drizzling. “How do you think I’m doing,” he said gruffly. “I’m about to bury my Godson next to my best friend.”

   Alex sighed and walked over to the bench, gathering up his tailcoat and sitting down beside the man he’d only briefly met in Limbo. Sir Woofsalot materialised from under his feet, and rubbed his head against Sirius’ leg. Absently, the other man dropped his hand to stroke his fur.

   “If it’s any consolation,” Alex said. “ I know it’s what Harry wanted. To save you.” He waggled his fingers at him. “In both our worlds, you were the closest thing he had to family, and he was willing to give his life for yours.” He cleared his throat and looked out through the yawning. “They both were.”

   Sirius looked up from the puppy, regret and horror blossoming on his face. “Not your Harry too?” he said.

   Alex sighed. “He’s still in Limbo,” he said. “Been there a few days. He lost his body to Voldemort, so...that’s that. He can’t go back.”

   Sirius lowered his head again, shaking it. “It’s not right,” he said. “I had my life, he should have left it, should have...” He trailed off, still shaking his head angrily.

   “That’s why I wanted to pop by,” said Alex. “I know it’s been an emotional few days, what with the Ministry on your back.”

   Sirius made a disdainful noise. “The kids gave their testimony right there in the Death Chamber, they were so hysterical after Harry...After we got back. I think they scared the Unspeakables a little if I’m honest.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t really care,” he said. “I just wanted to be here today, to do my job, to pull the casket. They can throw me back in Azkaban after that for all it matters.”

   “Nope,” said Alex, standing up and shaking his head. “No, that’s not what Harry would have wanted and you know it. You have to keep fighting, for him, for both of you.”

   “I just don’t see the point,” said Sirius, and Alex looked on him kindly.

   “You will,” he promised. “Maybe not today, or next week or even next year. But eventually you will see the point again, and you’ll be glad of it.”

   “Harry was what got me through Azkaban,” said Sirius. “All those months, sleeping in caves, living like a dog. And now the Ministry are willing to believe I might not have caused Lily and James’ death, but…” He trailed off, his eyes lost staring in the middle distance.

   Alex placed his hand on Sirius’ shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said.

   Sirius nodded but didn’t look up. “I know,” he said. “It all got pretty messed up didn’t it?”

   Alex lifted his hand and wrapped his arms around his waist. “You have no idea,” he said with a sigh. “We’ll be recovering from this for decades.”

   “Seems right I guess,” said Sirius, interlocking his fingers and pressing them onto his knuckles.

   Alex pulled a pocket watch from his jeans and popped open the clasp. “You better wake up,” he said, showing Sirius the face. “Almost time.”

   Sirius sighed heavily but nodded. “Thank you,” he said, rubbing the back of his sleeve over his eyes and standing. “I supposed it’s good weather,” he commented, indicating the rain. “For a funeral.”

   Alex sighed. “No weather is good for a funeral,” he said. “Take care Sirius Black, I will be checking in with your Watcher quite regularly, I’ll promise you that.”

   Sirius managed a weak smile, and turned up his collar as he prepared to step out into the damp morning. “Look after your Harry for me,” he said. “It’ll be nice, to think of you both up there.” He glanced upwards, as if Limbo was a physical place above the clouds, but Alex knew the living frequently thought of their afterlives waiting for them in the sky. So he just nodded, and with Sir Woofsalot at his heals his slipped back into the shadows, walking once more into the familiar wide marble corridor of Limbo.

   After the tranquillity of the church yard, it was startling to come back to the chaotic halls of Limbo. The corridors and archways, usually peaceful to the point of uneasiness, were a riot of moving and screeching bodies. People, animals and anything in between, running, shouting, pushing, waving papers, reading memos, writing messages. Now that Limbo had shrunk back to its more usual size, all its permanent residents were out in force, trying to make sense of the upheaval that had befallen them.

   Sir Woofsalot whined and scratched at Alex’s jeans. “I know Woofsy,” he said as a troop of dwarves went marching past, forcing the two of them further into the throng. “It was less scary when people were trying to kill us.”

   He looked down at his pup. “Stay close!” he instructed, and Sir Woofsalot barked once in compliance.

   They drove into the hoard, trying to stay on course despite the rushing bodies and charging hooves. “Watch out,” cried Alex cheerfully. “Just a moment, yes thank you very much.” He weaved in between the constantly moving targets, easing past doors that were almost always closed but today were opening and closing like shutters in a hurricane. Like they had seen back at Malfoy Manor, often the doors would be approached by Watchers, who would hold the handle for a moment in thought before opening it on the location of their choosing. But there was a grand set of double doors that had been propped open as wide as they could go, and as Alex walked slowly past, struggling with the masses, he could see inside the courtroom that had been attacked by the two Voldemorts, packed to the rafters even more so than the corridors he was moving through.

   “Order!” a wizened old goblin was shouting as people yelled and waved ballot papers in the air. “Order I say!”

   Alex raised his eyebrows at Sir Woofsalot. “After what happened to the last Council,” he said as they moved on. “You think they’d be less keen.”

   “Ain’t you got work to be doin’?” a disapproving voice rasped out from across the sea of people, moving in the opposite direction.

   “Oh believe me Adelaide,” said Alex cheerfully, waving out to her. “Enough for several lifetimes.”

   “Hello darling!” saluted Effie, sashaying along in Adelaide’s wake, nodding her big, purple, feathered hat. “How’s your universe?”

   “Still intact,” said Alex as a centaur dodged impatiently around him. “Yours?”

   “Like clockwork,” said the Victorian with a wink.

   “Like a pig in the parlour,” growled Adelaide, raising an eyebrow at Effie. “Magic school’s near ‘bout fallin’ apart, an’ that red-headed family are testin’ mah patience.”

   Alex chuckled to himself as the tide of the crowd pulled them further apart. “Enjoy yourselves,” he said as a checkout girl covered in blood all but ran into him.

   “Sorry,” she said in a Polish accent. “I am lost, could you point me to orientation?”

   Alex pointed down the corridor. “Just keep going until you hear the sound of grown men weeping,” he said.

   “Thank you.” The girl nodded and smiled, and Alex noted her name tag.

   “Be seeing you Ania,” he said as she rushed off, and he hoped that would be true. Sir Woofsalot looked after her, wagging his tail.

   A snippet of people singing caught his ear, and Alex let himself be whirled around by a gaggle of peasant folk in seared and scorched clothing, lugging pails of water. He almost asked what they were up to, but decided against it and followed the singing instead. He soon tracked it down to a set of roughly cut double doors with thick, wrought iron hinges and knockers. With a raise of the eyebrow to Sir Woofsalot, he pushed against one of them and peeked in.

   The hall was long and lit only by dim torchlight. Straw littered the ground as well as broken tankards and gnawed on animal bones. There were a few dozen Vikings clustered around a very long and cluttered wooden table, reaching from an enormous blazing fireplace towards where Alex was standing several feet away. Every kind of meat Alex could think of was piled on silver platters, dripping with honey, gravy, butter and even chocolate. Bread and potatoes filled any space that was in danger of going unoccupied in between, and running all along the centre of the long table was cake upon cake, all proudly standing on gleaming stands and covered in all manner of fruit, cream and fondants.

   It was mostly men, but the odd woman could be seen too, and they all had at least one drink in their hands that they were sloshing about as they stamped their feet and wailed in each others’ faces. _“AYEEAHHHHH-AH!”_ they were signing enthusiastically as some of them beat out a rhythm on the table’s edge.

   _“We come from the land of the ice and snow,_

_From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow._

_The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,_

_To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!”_

   Alex ducked as several more cups and what remained of their contents went flying over the Vikings’ heads, and a general roar of appreciation was bellowed by the warriors for their fallen fellows.

   Alex looked down at the dog in between his feet, who tilted his head. “You’re right Woofsy,” he said. “Best to leave before they make us join in.”

   The two of them slipped out unseen and closed the door again, only quieting the din fractionally. Alex smiled at the wood, remembering what he’d said to Harry after Arnthor had met them in the graveyard. “I think they’ve got the right idea,” he said to his dog as they moved on again. “Good excuse for a damn fine party.” Though as he thought of Godric, of Seamus and of both the Harrys, he couldn’t say he truly felt like celebrating.

   He let the people and creatures push and pull against him, and he let his eyes drift through the crowd, until he happened on another still figure, propped up against his broom, listening to his headphones and watching the throng of frenzied masses pass him by. The janitor troll caught Alex’s eye, and the two shared a smile and a nod. Perhaps he had the right idea, perhaps Alex needed to let this storm pass him by, to get some peace and quiet until everyone else put their affairs back in order.

   He knew where he always used to go when he needed things to make sense, or when he felt he hadn’t been told off in a while and probably should have been, so he started making his way to the nearest door. He didn’t expect anyone to be waiting for him on the other side, but that didn’t stop him as he pushed ahead and took hold of the handle, gripping it for just a moment before heading inside.

   “Oh,” he said in surprise as he walked into the room.

   The office was just as he remembered; coffee mugs on every available surface, abacus and computer on the desk, take-out menus and finger painting on the note board that had once been on the door. But there was in fact someone on the other side of Jia’s desk, and that someone was ushering him in with a hiss.

   “Close it, close it!” said Merlin from where he was standing on a stool, sheets of paper in one hand and a fountain pen in the other. “For the love of man don’t let those rabid cretins in!”

   Alex and Sir Woofsalot scuttled in and closed the door shut with a click. The quiet that followed was both welcome and soothing. “I’m sorry,” said Alex. “I didn’t think anyone would be here?”

   Merlin shrugged and pushed up a pair of half-moon glasses that were threatening to slip down his nose. “In case it had escaped your attention,” he said. “The populous is in a bit of a pickle. I was just seeing what I could do to help out.”

   “You mean hide,” said Alex sliding further into the room and clapping his hands together. He eyed up several reports on the edge of the desk that looked familiar, and reached to inspect them closer, but no sooner had his hand extended than it was slapped away by a riding crop. “Ow,” he said accusingly, but Merlin just retracted the crop and raised an eyebrow.

   “Not hiding,” he said. “Tactical withdrawal.”

   “And the beating stick?” asked Alex, nursing his hand.

   Again Merlin raised an eyebrow. “Necessary,” he said with only the slightest hint of exasperation, and glanced below the desk.

   Curious, Alex moved around to see what was lurking below, and no sooner had he seen did he understand. There, curled up and snoring softly, was the little, rotund figure of a dragon he had not long ago named Puff. He had made a bed out of a small fortune of gems and precious metals, the top layer of which were the nuggets of potential energy Alex himself had given him as reward for helping them. The purple amulet was still hung around his neck, and his teddy bear was propped under his head, still missing an eye and slightly burnt, but otherwise intact.

   “Ahh,” said Alex, amused. “I was wondering where he’d got to.”

   Puff rolled over in his slumber, squirming his back into his jewels and smiling drowsily. “Treeea-suuure,” he breathed, gloating even in his unconsciousness. “Pree-teey.”

   Alex smirked, but tried to cover it with his hand. Merlin didn’t seem to share his sentiment. “Can’t get rid of the little bugger,” he said stiffly. “Says he needs my protection.”

   Alex let a small laugh tickle the back of his throat, but masked it as a cough and said nothing.

   “Did you want something?” asked Merlin, peering at several documents he was holding.

   Alex considered. “No,” he said. “I guess not.”

   “Then I’ll see you tomorrow with a full report.” Merlin looked over his glasses and raised an eyebrow. “Say 9am?”

   “Should I call you boss then?” asked Alex, sauntering over to the broom cupboard.

   Merlin’s eyes were back on his papers, but he managed a twitch of a smile. “For the time being,” he said. “I suppose.”

   Alex grinned, then reached for the handle and pulled the door open. He’d had quite enough excitement for one day, and was happy to walk back into his own front hall.

   Sir Woofsalot dashed through just as the door swung shut behind them, and Alex let out a loud sigh, shrugging off his tailcoat. It was good to get it off, and as he hung it on the rack he rolled his shoulders.

   “Come on boy,” he said, and wandered into the living room. It seemed an age since he’d just put his feet up, so he lit the fire, dropped heavily into his favourite armchair, and kicked his boots off. Sir Woofsalot took a moment to inspect his socks before hopping up into his lap. “Oi, you big lump,” said Alex, but the dog knew he didn’t mean a word of it as he circled and snuggled in for a nap.

   “Oh all right,” said Alex, pretending to give in, and within seconds with little dog had shut his eyes and was breathing deeply.

   “Hmm,” said Alex, sighing and rubbing the puppy’s head. “That actually looks like a nice idea.”

   He wasn’t used to sleeping any more, he didn’t have a real body so he’d got out of practice. But as he closed his eyes and snuggled further into the plush fabric of the chair, he could feel his senses dulling. “Maybe just a little while,” he mumbled to himself and the fire crackled, and the portraits of his old friends whispered quietly on the wall. “Maybe I could use a nap too.”

   His eyes closed, he thought of everything that had brought him to that moment, his world getting darker and quieter by the moment. He thought of Godric, grinning, always grinning. He thought of Seamus, of his passion for his universe and how Alex would miss them both now they were truly gone. But then he thought of Harry and of Draco, the boys that had got them all into this mess in the first place, and he was sure his felt his tired face smile with pride.

   His boys. His troublesome boys. Not in a millennia had anyone meddled with the universes so badly, nor had they made his day more exciting, more problematic or more memorable.

   “Thanks,” he murmured.

   And for the first time in almost a decade, Alex felt his mind truly shutting off, drifting into that elusive pattern of sleep that he so envied amongst the living. Would he dream? he thought, as he slipped into the darkness.

   He hoped so.

 

 

 

The End

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, please review! Hxxx


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